It's a Long Story
by WitlessFool
Summary: Join the Doctor as he attempts to impress his teenage children with the remarkable tale of how he met and fell in love with their mother. Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. It's the familiar story of Ten and Rose told in a slightly different order with familiar characters popping up in unexpected scenarios. Ten/Rose
1. Pilot - The Runaway Bride

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who isn't mine. Neither is How I Met Your Mother. Simple.

**Spoilers for all of Christopher Eccleston's and David Tennant's episodes.**

**Introductory Note:** I don't like long author's notes and I know neither do most readers so I'll try to keep this short. As I've said in the companion one-shot _How I Met the Doctor_ (HIMTD), this won't be a direct transplantation of HIMYM into the DW universe, though certain bits and pieces will obviously be inspired from either works. So sit back and I hope you enjoy. :D

In terms of the timeline, the Doctor and the kids parts are the sequel (set after HIMTD) but the tales he is telling act as a prequel when compared to the tale Rose told. I hope that made sense in a sort of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey sort of way.

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**Chapter 1: Pilot/The Runaway Bride**

The Doctor beamed at his two children sitting on the couch across from him. The TARDIS was currently orbiting languidly in the time vortex with no specific destination in mind. The three of them were at the present moment sitting in the library, with the artificial windows behind the Doctor giving off the appearance of a sunny afternoon. It was the perfect setting for the wisdom that he was about to impart on his offspring.

"Kids," he began solemnly, putting on his best narrator voice. "Let me tell you an incredible story. The story of how I met your mother."

His children glanced at each other before turning their attention back onto their father. Like the typical teenagers they appeared to be, neither of them looked too impressed at his announcement.

"Are we being punished for something?" Michael wanted to know.

The Doctor was confused. In what way did this resemble a punishment? "No."

But the questions didn't stop there. "Yeah," Jacqueline piped up. "Is this going to take awhile?"

"Yes," came the firm reply.

The kids sighed as they leaned back. Having learnt from past experiences, they knew that once their father started, there was not much they could do to stop him.

"A very long time ago, before I was a dad, I had this whole other life…"

_It was way back in 2010. I was 901. Your Uncle Jack and I ran into a bit of trouble with the Eight Legs of Metebelis III – beautiful planet in the Acteon Galaxy, shame about the natives though. I defeated the Great One – why are all super villains' names so predictable? – and ended up getting a lethal dose of radiation in the process. I deposited Uncle Jack back to Cardiff before stumbling back into the TARDIS, just to be on the safe side, before undergoing regeneration in the TARDIS._

_Now kids, you haven't experienced regeneration yet. It's a bit of a dodgy process. You never know what you are going to end up and you always feel a bit out of sorts shortly afterwards. So try to avoid it while you can, alright kids? _

_But in my case, it was unavoidable, though I couldn't complain. My life had been good up to that point. Plus, look on the bright side, I had a brand new face, the promise of brand new adventures and distant planets never seen before by this pair of eyes. I simply couldn't wait to see something beautiful and exotic and new. And then your Uncle Mickey went and screwed the whole thing up._

"Will you marry me?"

"Uh, well, I don't – ooh," the Doctor grimaced as he poked around the inside of his mouth with his tongue. "New teeth, that's weird." Abandoning his curiosity over his new form, he turned his attention back to the problem at hand.

He had stumbled out of the TARDIS to discover he had landed in a quiet alley off a main street on Earth. London, judging by the looks of his surroundings. There was a gangster-looking black man in a leather jacket on bended knees in front of him, complete with a shining diamond ring in his hands. As far as the first thing he saw with his newly regenerated eyes goes, he's definitely had better. In fact, the Doctor could say with absolute certainty this was the weirdest "first" thing he's ever seen.

"Well, what do you think?" The man wanted to know. His head was cocked to one side, reminding the Doctor strangely of a quizzical dog.

"Uh, well, see here," the Doctor chuckled nervously as he slowly backed away until his back hit the comforting wooden door of the TARDIS. Experience dictated that in uncertain situations, it was always good to be close to the escape pod.

He was saved from answering when the guy stood up and sighed. "Come on, man. I want this to be perfect. She'll never say yes otherwise!"

The Doctor found that doubtful as he stared at the guy currently pacing back and forth in front of him. With his crew cut, leather jacket and the scowl on the dude's face, the Doctor doubted many people would be brave enough to say no to that face. But it did solve one riddle. "So you're not proposing to me?"

It was the mystery dude's turn to stare at the Doctor. "Are you insane? Why would I be proposing to you? I was just asking for your opinion."

"Well," the Doctor brightened. "In that case, it was perfect! She'll say yes. Then you're engaged. You pop the champagne. You drink a toast. You have sex on the kitchen floor." He paused and thought about it. "Actually, on second thought, don't have sex on the kitchen floor. It's not very hygienic. And side-note, wow, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a gob." Pausing mid-rant, another thought entered the Doctor's mind. "Why are you asking me? Isn't there someone else more suitable for that job?"

"Are you kidding?" The guy asked incredulously. "You're the Doctor. You've been there for all the big moments. The night we met. Our first date. My first meeting with her family. Our first expedition as freelancers. You even helped me pick out this ring!"

"Really?" The Doctor was intrigued. After 900 years, he has seen and done many things but none of them was domestic. "When was that?"

"What do you mean, when was that?" If at all, the guy looked even more confused. "Just half an hour ago on Old Bond St. You said, classy girl like her would probably appreciate Tiffany & Co."

"Did I?" This was getting weird and weirder.

"Yeah, then while I was waiting for the payment to go through, you just turned and left me! Went walking around, trying to find you before I heard the sound of the TARDIS. And here you are."

"Here I am." The Doctor echoed, dumbfounded by all this.

"Did you hit your head on the console while trying to land or something?" The guy stepped in closer as he examined the Doctor closely. "Wait, tell me you know who I am."

He couldn't. "Who are you?"

"Oh, of course!" The dude took a step back and raised his hands to the top of his head. "Just this morning, you commented that usually if there were another you somewhere in the vicinity, you'd have to run off to avoid creating a paradox. And here I was thinking you were just running off your gob again. Oh!" He realized, snapping his fingers at the Doctor. "You even gave me a lecture on the risk of revealing too much to a past version of a time traveller because that could cause disturbances to timelines –"

The dude cut himself off and stared at the Doctor. "Damnit! I shouldn't have said that."

"Yeah, probably not," the Doctor commented. He couldn't help but be amused by the spectacle the guy was making of himself. If they went back a few centuries, the term "village idiot" might have been appropriate here.

"Right," the guy nodded as he straightened his shoulders. "I'm going to leave now because I say too much. See you then."

"Good luck with the missus!" Charmed, the Doctor yelled after him.

"Yeah, you too!" The dude replied as he walked off onto the main street.

"Wait, what?" The Doctor yelled again and ran after him, but by the time the Doctor left the alley, the guy was already lost in the crowd of shoppers on the main footpath. The Doctor grumbled quietly to himself. "You probably shouldn't have told me that either."

Still confused over the incident, the Doctor strolled back into the TARDIS and cheerfully decided he would let the future him deal with the repercussions. After the last set of adventures with Jack, it would be nice to enjoy some peace and quiet before he started off again. Though not too much peace and quiet, he hoped. Where would be the fun in that? _Man, this version of me sure is cheerful._ Brushing that thought aside, the Doctor sent the TARDIS to "orbit" mode before focusing on his initial question. "Now then… what do I look like?"

He started to make his way towards the wardrobe before he decided against it. It would be like ripping open the wrappings of a Christmas present. He should always shake the box, smell it, lick the outside, peak inside a little hole and have a guess before opening it. More fun that way.

"No, no, no, no no no no, no, don't tell me," he jabbed his finger cheerfully at the TARDIS' central column as if she would actually spoil the surprise. "Let's see. Two legs, two arms, two hands…" He hummed as he rotated his right wrist. "Slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle. Hair!" He exclaimed as his hands reached up and was met with thick strands of hair. "I'm not bald! Oh, ooh!" He continued when his hands met more hair that he realized. "Big hair! Sideburns, I've got sideburns! Or," came the nasty thought. "Really bad skin."

Turning his attention down to the parts of his body he could see. "A little bit thinner," he commented as he patted his stomach. "That's weird. Give me time, I'll get used to it." He concentrated as he examined his integumentary system and smiled in wonder as he made a new discovery. "I…" he slowly said as he made sure it was really there. "Have got… a mole. I can feel it. Between my shoulder blades, there's a mole." Rotating his shoulders, he decided he could most definitely get used to this new addition. "That's all right. Love the mole." Satisfied for the moment, he turned to beam at his TARDIS again. "Go on then, tell me, what do you think?"

"Think of what?" A strange voice asked from behind him.

Startled, the Doctor turned around, only to see a redhead woman decked out in a white wedding gown doing the same. They stared at each other in shock for a minute. Stunned, the Doctor could only think of a single word.

"What?"

"Huh!" Clearly, the woman standing in front of him was just as shocked as he was.

"What?"

Squinting, the redhead scrutinized the Doctor closely with suspicious eyes. "Who are you?"

"But –" the Doctor started to say in confusion.

Only to be interrupted by his unexpected company demanding to know, "Where am I?"

"What?"

Clearly fed up with his unintelligent repetition, the strange woman looked around at her surroundings, growing more and more agitated by the second. "What the hell is this place?!"

"What?" the Doctor looked around as well, trying to find a reason for this madness. "You can't do that. I wasn't – We're in flight. That is physically impossible! How did –"

The woman stalked right up to him. "Tell me where I am. I demand you tell me right now where am I?!"

"Inside the TARDIS."

"The what?" She blinked and squinted at him, as if that would help with her hearing. Human habits, so unusual and pointless, the Doctor couldn't help but think.

"The TARDIS!" He repeated, raising his voice slightly, as if the increase in volume with aid her understanding. Blimey, he was picking up human habits too!

"The what?"

"The TARDIS!"

"The what?"

"It's called the TARDIS!" Blimey, this could go on all day. The Doctor turned his attention back to the console, trying to figure out how on earth this loud woman got in here. Two minutes in and his newly regenerated ears were already ringing.

The woman scoffed as she followed him around the console. "That's not even a proper word. You're just saying things."

He decided to let that one slide and focus on the more pressing issue. "How did you get in here?"

The lady rolled her eyes. "Well, obviously, when you kidnapped me!" she explained sarcastically. "Who was it? Who's paying you? Is it Nerys?" Raising her eyes to the ceiling, she was practically fuming with anger. "Oh my God, she's finally got me back. This has got Nerys written all over it."

"Who the hell is Nerys?" The situation was quickly unravelling out of his control. If there was one thing the Doctor had learnt in his previous 900 plus years of life, it would be that angry women, of any species, were a dangerous entity to deal with.

"Your best friend." She retorted.

"Hold on," the Doctor stared at her. He was only just taking in the woman's attire. "Wait a minute. What are you dressed like that for?"

"I'm going ten pin bowling." The redhead said before exploding in anger. "What do you think, dumbo?"

The Doctor quickly retreated, walking around the console to get away from the fuming bride in front of him. A quick glance at the TARDIS screen confirmed what he thought. They were in space. They were literally orbiting amongst the stars. He continued fiddling with the controls, trying to find the source of the problem.

Following him, the redhead wasn't done. "I was halfway up the aisle! I've been waiting all my life for this. I was just seconds away, and then you, I don't know, you drugged me or something!"

This time, he wasn't about to let it slide. "I haven't done anything!" He shouted right back at her. Ooh, that was rude. Was that what he was now? Rude?

Undeterred by his outburst, the woman continued following him as he danced around the console. "I'm having the police on you! Me and my husband, as soon as he is my husband, we're going to sue the living backside off you!"

Humans and their lawsuits, the Doctor thought. There was a pause and realizing that there was no angry redhead following his movements, the Doctor turned around only to find the bride making a beeline for the front door. "No, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Don't!"

But it was too late.

Jack Harkness' chuckle echoed down the phone to the Doctor. "So, then what did you do to the poor woman?"

The Doctor raised his mobile up to his face and pouted at it before answering. "Why do you always think the worst of me?"

"Well gee, let me see," Jack drawled. "Could it be because the conversation you two were having was quickly deteriorating into a shouting match? Or the fact that the bride was going run headfirst out of the TARDIS while the old girl was in flight? Or maybe it's because the size of your curiosity can out-rival any cat? I wouldn't be surprised if you started scanning her with one of your gadgets to try and figure out the problem."

The Doctor's silence at Jack's last comment was telling enough.

"Oh no, you didn't," Jack laughed.

"Well I had to!" the Doctor defended himself, his voice eerily resembling that of a schoolboy who was getting scolded. Damn, the reshaping of his vocal cords was going to be something else he was going to have to get used to. "I didn't understand what happened and I understand everything. That sort of thing, it just doesn't happen! There is no way a human being can lock itself onto the TARDIS and transport itself inside. I wanted to figure out what was causing it."

"I can't imagine the bride taking that too well," his companion over the phone commented.

"She slapped me," the Doctor sulked.

Jack laughed again. "So then what did you do?"

"Well, not much," the Doctor sighed as he leaned back on the couch. "I dropped her back onto Earth. The TARDIS was acting up a bit so we missed the wedding." He tried not to think about the heartbroken look on her face when she arrived at the reception and realized it was just a party now.

"Where are you now?"

"Across the street in a café," the Doctor answered, casually glancing out the window at the party that was still in full swing. "Guess that's it then. I'll never figure out why it all happened now. Hang on," he sat up, fully alert as he focused on the scene in the reception hall. "Those santas… they look like robo scavengers!"

Without hesitation, he snapped his mobile shut and dashed out of the store.

Twenty minutes, a room destroyed by exploding Christmas decorations and a wedding video that revealed Huon particles to the source of their problem later, the Doctor and the happy couple arrived at the headquarter of H.C. Clements, where the two of them worked.

"Lance, he's the head of HR!" the bride, still decked out in white, chirped brightly as she clung to her groom's arm. "And I was just a temp! He didn't need to bother with me. But he was so nice and funny. So that's how it all started, me and him. One cup of coffee. That was it."

"Great," the Doctor muttered absentmindedly as he scanned the room for anything that stood out. It looked just like a regular workplace in a rather bland locksmith company. But something fishy was definitely going on underneath this normal façade. Striding up to the computer, he fished out his sonic screwdriver and began scanning the database for information. "When was this?"

"Six months ago."

He glanced over at the visibly displeased groom. "Bit quick to get married, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "Well, he insisted."

Somehow, the Doctor suspected that wasn't the case. Giving up on the computer for the moment, he turned his attention back to the couple next to him. "You have Huon particles coursing through your body. It's ancient. Huon energy doesn't exist anymore, not for billions of years. Not since the Dark Times. The only place you'd find a Huon particle now is a remnant in the heart of the TARDIS. So I need you to focus and try to remember anything that's out of the ordinary in the past few months. Have you seen lights in the sky, or did you touch something, like something different, strange?"

"No, no," she stuttered, clearly confused with the Doctor's ramble. "What are you talking about?"

The Doctor growled in frustration. Looking around at all the desks, he quickly grabbed a mug and a pencil. He raised both of them to eye-level and demonstrated. "See? Say, that's the TARDIS," he gestured with the mug. "And that's you," he nodded at the pencil. "The particles inside you activated. The two sets of particles magnetised and whap," he dropped the pencil in the mug. "You were pulled into the TARDIS."

"What the hell are we talking about?" Lance demanded to know, staring at both his fiancé and the Doctor like they were both crazy. "Shouldn't we call the police or something?"

The Doctor looked at him, hummed in response before turning his attention back to the computer screen. A few seconds later, he found the information that he was looking for.

He had his suspicions, yes. As soon as he saw the particle extrusion equipment and the resulting product hiding underneath the Thames, the Doctor knew whoever he was dealing with, they had inside help. But it didn't make the truth hurt any less, the Doctor thought as he stood silently beside the bride. He glared at the creature and her consort standing in front of him, knowing that no words would ease the hurt the woman beside him must be feeling at her fiancé's betrayal. A cup of coffee every day, laced with Huon particles in liquid form. She was slowly loaded up with the deadly particles, catalysing the inert particles.

"So you dosed her," the Doctor stated tonelessly, staring up at a creature that he thought was extinct. "But answer me this, what exactly do you need the particles for? What have you hidden underneath here," he nodded at the great big chasm located in the centre of the room.

"I think he wants us to talk?" Lance mocked.

The Empress of the Racnoss cackled. "Well, tough! All we need is her. Activate the particles!" Like a switch, the bride began to glow once more. "And release!" The glowing Huon particles surrounding the bride were all purged and zoomed down into the hole.

At first, nothing happened but then the sound of hundreds of chittering Racnoss filtered up to reach their ears.

"The Racnoss," the Doctor realised. "You were hiding from the war. But they got stuck. With no Huon particles, they were all forced into hibernation, for billions and billions of years."

"Until now," the Empress cackled. "My children, the long lost Racnoss, now reborn to feast on flesh! My babies are hungry, they need sustenance. Let them feast!" With the flick of one of her legs, she sent a startled Lance into the pit.

"Lance!" Despite being betrayed by the man who got her into this mess in the first place, she still screamed in horror as he plummeted down into the dark depth.

There was no time for grief. The Doctor fixed his gaze onto the triumphant Racnoss in front of him. "I'll give you one last chance. I can find you a planet. I can find you and your children a place in the universe to co-exist. Take that offer and end this now. Otherwise, what happens next will be your own doing."

"I'm afraid I'll have to decline." The Empress hissed at him. "My children tonight may feast on Martian flesh!"

He was afraid of that. "I'm not from Mars. My home planet may be far away and long since gone, but its name lives on. Gallifrey."

The Racnoss reared back in surprise, hissing in horror, "they murdered the Racnoss!"

"I warned you. You did this." No second chances, he wasn't that sort of a man.

_Well, kids, at that point in my life, I had done a lot of things that I wasn't proud of nor cared to repeat. But all of which were necessary. That was the life I led. It wasn't fun. It wasn't smart. That day, if I hadn't stopped the Racnoss and her fledglings, they would have devoured everything in their path, starting with Earth and then moving onto the rest of the galaxy. That was why we stopped them the first time and that was why I had to stop them again._

_However, despite that, I couldn't forget the screaming Empress as she wept for her lost children amongst the sea of flame and flood. The bride pleaded me to stop. That was so human. She was brilliant, all decked out in white and absolutely soaked to the bones. She had been threatened, faced aliens, lost her job and her fiancé all within the span of 24 hours. Yet she stood there, firm and unshaken. I knew she was someone special, which led me to offer her the chance to come with me._

"No," was her small but firm reply.

The Doctor nodded. "That's fine."

Leaving the officials - most likely the UNIT - to deal with the clean-up, the Doctor guided the two of them back to her place. Landing outside her house, they could both see her worried parents clinging to each other, fearing the worst.

"No, but really. Everything we did today. Do you live your life like that?" she asked.

"Not all the time." Though he didn't mean to, even the Doctor could detect a defensive tone in his voice as he leant back against the TARDIS.

"I think you do," her eyes were solemn and knowing. "And I couldn't. Just promise me one thing, though."

Considering all that he's done to her life that day, the Doctor figured it was reasonable. "What's that?"

"Find someone."

"I don't need anyone," he replied with a small smile.

"Yes, you do. Because sometimes, I think you need someone to stop you."

"And that was it," the Doctor said as he settled down onto the TARDIS' jump seat and updated Jack over the phone about what happened. "I'll never see her again."

He waited expectantly for a flippant reply from the former Time Agent but was instead met with silence.

"What?" he demanded to know.

"You should have asked her again!" Jack practically exploded down the line. "A woman who could not only accepted aliens that quickly but could also tolerate your madness? She sounds like someone who's worth asking twice."

"She said no." the Doctor repeated.

"Yeah, women are indecisive like that. I bet you, if you asked her again, she would have said yes."

"How would you know? You weren't even there."

"Doc, when you have my level of experience with women, you just know. Like when you dropped me off at Cardiff last week, I went into this bar – Blaidd Ddrwg it's called – and saw the most gorgeous woman standing there, right in front of me."

"Trust me, she would have said no." the Doctor insisted, though he felt like he was fighting a losing battle.

"Yeah, Doc, we're not on you anymore. Now, back to my story, so there was this hot brunette just standing by the bar and…"

_I asked her about it years later. And yeah, if I had asked her again, she would have agreed. But that's the funny thing about destiny, it happens whether you plan it or not. I mean I never thought I'd see that loud, abrasive woman again but it turns out I was just too close to the puzzle to see the picture that was forming. Because that, kids, is the true story –_

"Of how I met your Aunt Donna."

Both kids were nodding along to the story, engaged despite their initial reluctance. At the end of that last sentence though, they both gaped, slack jawed, at their father.

"Aunt Donna?"

"I thought this was how you met _Mum_!" Jacqueline practically screeched.

"Will you relax? I'm getting to it." The Doctor was indignant. It wasn't like him to get off track. Well, okay, sometimes he does. Hm… usually. Well, most of the time. But that was not the point. He never get off track on the important subjects, especially one that was as important as their mother.

In unison, his kids sighed as they settled back into the couch.

Undaunted, the Doctor carried on. "Like I said, it's a long story."

_Oh, and you know what, kids? When I met your mother, I did ask twice._


	2. Sweet Taste of Liberty - Smith & Jones

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who isn't mine. Neither is How I Met Your Mother. Simple.

**Author's Note:** Thanks to everyone who's reviewed. :) Your support's greatly appreciated. I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Alright then, let's get started!

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**Chapter 2: Sweet Taste of Liberty/Smith & Jones**

"Okay, so where was I?" the Doctor mused out loud.

"You were telling us how you met mum," his eldest reminded him from her seat on the library couch.

Seated next to her, her brother added. "In excruciating detail."

"Right," the Doctor beamed. Their mother. That was his favourite subject. "So there was this night when I phoned up your Uncle Jack."

"Uncle Jack?" Michael chuckled. "Big surprise."

"Yeah," his daughter added, smiling. "Despite all your complaints, you seem to spend a lot of your time with him."

_Well, you wouldn't be called Jacqueline if I didn't. But I would like to point out that your naming wasn't my decision. That was entirely your mother's fault – take it up with her if you want to. Anyway, back on topic. It was just what I did back then. I never did like travelling by myself. Sometimes it was necessary but usually, I have a companion or two tagging along. I liked company. And extra sets of hands, that's always handy. Heehee, get it?_

_Bad pun? _

_Right, sorry. Moving on._

_Anyway, on that particular occasion, I didn't have a steady companion yet. I had just met your Uncle Mickey, who was still a complete stranger to me at that time. He had dashed off in 2010 to propose to the love of his life. Your Aunt Donna returned to Christmas of 2007 to her family. She was going to shed her old life and go out there on the big wide planet called Earth. Both of them were about to make a big, positive change to their lives. And me? Well, I was calling up your Uncle Jack._

"So you know how I always had a thing for Russian blondes?" Jack answered the phone without preamble. "Well, now I've got a new favourite. London brunettes."

_I had no idea why I hung out with Uncle Jack._

The Doctor stared down at his phone, already regretting his decision to phone Jack.

But Jack wasn't done.

"Yeah," he drawled the word out in satisfaction. "London brunettes are the new Russian blondes."

The Doctor sighed. It was too late. He's called so he might as well ask. "Hey, you want to do something tonight?"

"Okay," without missing a beat, Jack responded. "Meet me in London in three hours."

_At that time, your Uncle Jack was based in Cardiff. He had ties to that place. But of course, he hadn't always been there. He was a 51st century guy living his life in the 21st century. It was a funny story how we met actually._

"It's a con. I was conning you. That's what I am. I'm a con man. I thought you were a Time Agent. You're not, are you?"

"Nope. Just another freelancer."

Jack chuckled without mirth. "I should have known. The way you're blending in with the local colour. I mean the blue phone box was bad enough but U-boat captain?"

_Your Uncle Jack. Even when human DNA was being rewritten in the middle of the London Blitz, he still found the time to criticise my dress code._ _Like I said, funny story. Maybe I'll tell it to you sometime. _

"Ooh, nice face," Jack grinned when he first caught the sight of the Doctor. "Pretty face," he pouted as he continued to examine the Doctor's new form. "I liked you when you were all dark and hunky. Now you could almost give me a run for my money when it comes to the ladies. That's of course, if only I wasn't so charming."

The Doctor chose to ignore that comment. Instead, he focused on the issue at hand. "You know, when I asked you if you wanted to do something tonight, I meant going for an adventure. You know. Time and space. Not sitting inside a London taxi cab."

"Oh, would you relax?" Jack chuckled. "I've got the night all sorted out. But first, we need to pick someone up at the hospital."

"Okay," the Doctor decided, reaching for the door. "I'm out of here."

"George, the doors," Jack commanded.

With a click, all the doors were locked. The Doctor turned his head to face Jack, only to find the former Time Agent waving the Doctor's sonic screwdriver back at him. Sighing, the Doctor resigned himself to his fate and allowed George the taxi driver to take them to Jack's destination.

Twenty minutes later, still in the middle of the night, the two of them found themselves in the heart of London, heading towards the Emergency Department of the Royal Hope Hospital.

"What we doing here?" the Doctor demanded. "I don't just offer a trip in the TARDIS to anyone. So who exactly are we picking up?"

"I don't know," Jack shrugged. "Her?" He nodded over at a pretty nurse smoking out on the street. "Or maybe him?" He winked at the security guard by the driveway.

The Doctor blinked. "Wait. So when you said you were going to pick someone up at the hospital, you meant you were going to _pick someone up_ at the hospital?"

Grinning widely, Jack nodded. "Scenario. A couple of hot brunettes stroll in for their shift, expecting another dreary day on the job. But instead, they find two incredibly handsome young men, waiting in their Emergency Department for them."

"You are taking your London brunette obsession a bit too far." The Doctor chuckled. He paused as a thought occurred to him. "Wait, why would we be waiting in the Emergency Department? Oof!"

His train of thought ended in a world of pain as Jack socked him hard right in the stomach.

_Now you see why I complain about him all the time, kids?_

The curtain dividers opened up with a swoosh as a consultant walked into their cubicle, followed by half a dozen junior doctors.

"Now then, Mr Smith, a very good morning to you." the consultant greeted the pair of them. "How are you today?"

Having waited in this cubicle for 8 hours and enjoying the sight of Jack sulking because he hadn't been allowed anywhere else on the ward, the Doctor decided he could play along for a little bit. "Aw, not so bad. Still a bit, you know. Blah."

The consultant turned to his students. "John Smith, admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains. Jones, why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me."

A young and pretty lady with shoulder length black hair stepped forward. The Doctor had to bite down on a snort at the way Jack visibly perked up. And then deflate once more when Ms Jones walked past him without a glance, her attention solely on the patient.

"That wasn't very clever," she remarked as she took out her stethoscope. "Running around outside, was it?"

The Doctor was confused. "Sorry?"

"On Chancery Street this morning," Martha stared at him. "You came up to me and took your tie off."

"Really?" the Doctor was intrigued. It seemed the future him crossed his own timelines again. "What did I do that for?"

Eyes wide, the junior doctor shrugged. "I don't know, you just did."

"Not me. I was here, in bed. Ask the nurses."

"Or you could ask me," Jack leaned back and stretched out his arms, showing off the size of his biceps.

He might as well have been chopped liver for all the attention that earned him.

"Well, that's weird. Cause it looked like you. Have you got a brother?"

"No," the Doctor said quietly, his throat abnormally constricted. He swallowed. It has been years and two regenerations ago, but thoughts of Gallifrey still bothered him. So he pushed those away and focused on the present. "Not any more. Just me."

"As time passes," the Consultant – Mr Stoker, according to his nametag – interrupted. "And I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones."

Miss Jones jumped. Putting on her stethoscope, she placed it over the Doctor's left chest. He could only smile weakly when her wide-eyed gaze came up to meet his. Of course, the double-thrum of his two hearts would give him away. With her eyes still on him, the junior doctor moved her stethoscope to the right to confirm her suspicions.

Damnit, Jack's going to get it if and when they get out of this situation. The Doctor discreetly winked at her, hoping she would keep quiet.

Luckily, he was saved by the doctor – the medical one, not himself.

Mr Stoker sighed. "I weep for future generations. Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?"

Startled by the question, Martha let out a nervous chuckle as she straightened up. "Uhm, I don't know. Stomach cramps?"

"That is a symptom, not a diagnosis," the consultant pointed out. "And you rather failed basic techniques by not consulting first with the patient's chart."

He walked to the end of the bed and picked up the chart, only to receive an electric shock. He dropped it in surprise.

"That happened to me this morning," Miss Jones said.

"I had the same thing on the door handle." Another junior doctor chimed in.

"And me, on the lift."

Mr Stoker shrugged. "That's only to be expected. There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by –" he glanced around the room. "Anyone?"

"Benjamin Franklin," grinning, the Doctor chimed in. He always did love pop quizzes.

"Correct!" Mr Stoker was impressed.

But the Doctor was on a roll. "My mate Ben, that was a day and a half. I got rope burns off that kite, and then I got soaked…" he glanced over at Jack, who was struggling not to grin as well.

"Quite…" Mr Stoker said.

"… and then I got electrocuted," the Doctor beamed.

Mr Stoker nodded. "Moving on." He grabbed one of the students and quietly whispered some words to him. "And next we have –"

Needing to keep the façade up, the Doctor kept grinning at the departing crowd until they turned a corner. Then he dropped his grin and fixed a steely glare at his former friend. "Right, Jack. As soon as we get out, you are so going to get it."

"That's if you don't get sectioned first," Jack chuckled. But at the sight of his friend's glare, he sobered up quickly. "Right, let's get out then."

The Doctor swung his foot around and got out of the bed. Together, they checked for any nurses as they snuck out of the cubicle and out onto the ward.

"Right, as soon as I find my clothes," the Doctor started as they strolled down the brightly lit corridor, with him still in the hospital pyjamas. "We're going to leave and I'm going to dump you back to Cardiff. This was the worst idea I've ever heard of – pick someone up at the hospital. I'm never listening to your ideas ever again."

"Well, since we're here, we might as well have a look around," Jack offered a suggestion.

"But hospitals are boring! Except for the little shop downstairs. I always like the little shop, not for myself, mind you. I don't do domestics. But for other people, it does a world of good."

"Yes, I know," Jack sighed as he trailed behind him. "Every time we visit a museum, or a library, or a gallery, you give me that same spiel. And the next time you give this spiel, I can also add hospitals to the list. I swear sometimes, do you even listen to yourself?"

"Now, where the hell is my suit?" the Doctor wondered as he randomly selected a cupboard and yanked it open, only to get an electric shock in the process when he touched the metal handle. "Ow! What's going on here?"

He suddenly stood still and turned to look at Jack. "Do you sense that?"

"Yeah," Jack stared at him, as if it was obvious. "But I'm surprised it's taken you this long to notice. How thick are you in this regeneration?"

The Doctor waved it away with a tilt of his head. "I was busy sulking from the punch you threw. It really hurt. Then I was thinking of ways of to get back at you. Then I was thinking about Cardiff and this tiny little bar tucked away at the corner that serves a really good banana daiquiri. Then I was thinking about bananas. Bananas are cool, don't you reckon?"

"Okay, not thick," Jack amended. "Just hyper with attention span issues." Sensing another sulk was going to come on, he quickly continued talking. "I noticed these plasma coils during work. It's been gathering for the last two days. Not only are they all concentrated in London but they are only found around this hospital. It's as if this place is being targeted for some reason. I just can't figure out what."

"You work in Cardiff so how did you know about this? Exactly what do you do for a living?" for the first time, the Doctor thought to ask that.

Jack chuckled. "Please."

The Doctor gave up that line of questioning in the face of more pressing concerns. "Okay, if I was a hospital personnel and I wanted to hide away a patient's clothes so that he can't escape, where would I put it?"

"Uh, that's not really what the hospital staff does here on Earth," Jack commented as he strolled towards the window. Behind him, the Doctor continued to rifle through the cupboard, throwing towels and pillows over his shoulder as he do so. "Shouldn't we focus on more important issues like the rain outside that's rising?"

"What?" the Doctor popped his head out of the cupboard. Then realisation dawned on his face. "Upward rain. Lightning. That's an H2O scoop."

"Right, now he focuses on the real issue," Jack rolled his eyes. "By the way, Doc, if you had just bothered to ask me, your suit and shoes are in the bedside table next to your bed."

Just then, the entire building shook. The ceiling lights flickered and swung violently. The sound of ceramics shattering as they fell to the floor resonated all around them. Cupboard doors swung open and shut as the building itself veered brutally from one side to another. Staggering onto their feet, both men looked at each other as they grabbed onto the nearest fixed object and hung on.

Then, a short moment later, it all stopped.

Around them, screams and sounds of human hysteria reached their ears. Standing up and shaking off broken bits of glass and ceramics from their clothes, the Doctor and Jack turned in unison and dashed towards the nearest window.

"No way," Jack breathed out.

"Neutral territory," the Doctor nodded in understanding. He stared out through the window at the deserted landscape. It was dark, like night time. In the far distance, the Earth shined like a homing beacon, keeping them in orbit.

They were on the moon.

Dashing back to his cubicle, the Doctor closed the curtains and quickly took out his suit. Just as he snapped it shut, he saw the junior doctor from earlier in the morning strolling back in, confident exuding from her stride even though the slight trembling in her hands gave her away.

"All right," she announced. "Everyone back to bed, we've got an emergency but we'll sort it out."

She's good, the Doctor thought as he buttoned up his shirt.

"It's real," the doctor – Miss Jones – quietly said from beyond the curtains. "It's really real. Hold on!"

"Don't," her colleague, another female, yelled out. "We'll lose all the air!"

"But they're not exactly air tight. If the air was going to get sucked out it would have happened straight away, but it didn't. So how come?"

"Very good point! Brilliant, in fact." the Doctor heard Jack entering the conversation, all jovial and charming. "Captain Jack Harkness, and who are you?"

"Martha Jones," Miss Jones breathlessly replied.

Slipping on his converse, the Doctor pulled aside the bed-curtains. "Oh, don't start."

"I was just saying hello," came Jack's age-old defence. Ten seconds, the Doctor observed. Ten seconds and Jack's already got one arm around Miss Jones' waist and the other hand cupping her chin. That was fast, even for Jack.

Still smiling, Martha turned her attention to the Doctor. "I really don't mind."

"Of course, you don't," the Doctor muttered as he shouldered past them to get to the window. "Nobody ever does. That's the problem." Raising his voice to an audible level, he then said. "Well then, Martha Jones, the question is, how are we still breathing?"

"We can't be!" Martha's colleague insisted.

The Doctor turned and shot her a level look. "Obviously we are so don't waste my time. Martha," he turned his attention back to Miss Jones. "What have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda, or…?"

"By the patients' lounge, yeah."

"Fancy going out?" Jack asked with a wink, offer her the crook of his arm.

"Okay." she nodded.

"We might die," Jack lowered his voice with mock seriousness.

"We might not," Martha countered.

"Good! Glad we're all in agreement. Just keep the flirting to a minimum, eh Jack?" the Doctor brushed past them again. "C'mon then. Not her," he turned and pointed at Martha's friend, who was still gaping at them with wide eyes and slack jaws. "She'd hold us up."

"We've got air!" Martha exclaimed in amazement as the three of them walked out onto the balcony. "How does that work?"

The Doctor scanned their surroundings with a thoughtful gaze. "Just be glad it does."

Jack glanced over at him. Now that serious look – that's the Doctor he was familiar with. He turned his attention back to Martha, who had continued to talk.

"I've got a party tonight. It's my brother's twenty-first," she let out a breathless chuckle as a thought suddenly occurred to her. "My mother's going to be really… really…" she trailed off.

Jack touched her shoulder. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

She was quite brave. But still… "Want to go back in?"

"No way," Martha looked at him as he was the crazy one. "I mean," she amended as she turned her eyes back at the landscape. "We could die any minute, but all the same – it's beautiful."

"You think?" the Doctor popped his head in between theirs.

Martha jumped and whipped around, as if she'd just realized he was there. "I promise you, Mr Smith, we will find a way out. If we can travel to the moon, then we can travel back. There's got to be a way."

"It's not Smith," the Doctor replied as he tipped his head back and studied the darkened sky. "That's not my real name."

"Who are you then?"

"I'm the Doctor."

Oh, here we go, Jack thought as he stepped back, leaning against the glass door and allowed this conversation to go the way it always does.

"How do you mean, just the Doctor?"

"Just… the Doctor." He said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"What," Martha still wasn't convinced. "People call you 'the Doctor'?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I'm not." Martha cut the conversation short as she looked back out at the Earth. "As far as I'm concerned, you've got to earn that title."

Jack blinked as he straightened up. That was … unusual.

"Well, I'd better make a start, then." The Doctor said as he picked up a pebble. He flung it out, only for it to hit some invisible shield and bouncing back in. "There must be some sort of force field keeping the air in. Like a bubble, sealing us all in."

"Wait, that means this is the only air we've got," Martha realised. "There are over a thousand people in this hospital. We'd all suffocate once the air runs out. Why would anyone do that?"

The Doctor's eyes were not back at the darkened sky above them. "Head's up! Ask them yourself."

Jack tipped his head back up as well. His eyes widened as spaceships – familiar ones at that – appeared over the hospital building. Three of them, in unison, landed a short distance away from the hospital and as soon as their hatch doors were lowered, the familiar sound of militaristic marching reached their ears.

"Aliens. That's aliens," Martha said, scarcely believing her own words. "Real, proper aliens."

"Judoon," Jack stated.

"Well, let's figure out what they want," the Doctor turned and ran back into the hospital.

"Well, come on," Jack grabbed Martha's hand. "First thing you need to learn about when travelling with the Doctor, and that is to run quickly. Come on!"

"She's good," Jack whispered to the Doctor as the two of them were bent over the dead body of Mr Stoker.

Everything was starting to piece together to form a picture now. The Judoon platoon was looking for someone on Earth but because they have no jurisdiction over the planet, they isolated the hospital to the moon, a neutral territory. Now they were making their way throughout the hospital, cataloguing all the humans so that they could isolate their target. Only problem was, the alien appear to be a Plasmavore, and has apparently drained the medical consultant dry of blood to assimilate with the rest of the humans.

"The Plasmavore?" the Doctor asked as he carefully examined the straw-like puncture wound on the consultant's neck. "Yeah, I suppose she is. But now is not the time to praise the opposition."

"No, I meant Martha," Jack jerked his head discreetly at the junior doctor. "We could… you know."

The Doctor stared at him as if he's got two heads. "Neither is this the time to talk about _picking someone up_ from the hospital. Priorities, Jack."

Jack sighed as the two of them straightened. "We'll talk about it later."

But the Doctor wasn't listening. He was already exiting the room. Hurrying out after him, Jack and Martha saw him striding down the hallway.

"Think, think, think." The Doctor muttered as he scratched himself on the back of the head. "If I was a plasmavore surrounded by police, what would I do?" He looked up at the sign. "Aah, she's as clever as me. Almost." he amended.

Just as Jack was about to ask why they were all staring at the MRI sign, they could hear from behind them, the low growling voice of a Judoon. "Find the non-human. Execute."

The Doctor whipped around and looked at both Jack and Martha. "Stay here. I need time. You're going to have to hold them up."

"Okay," Jack nodded, fingering the Compact Laser Deluxe – a remnant of his life back in the 51st century – he had hidden in his pocket.

Martha was less ready. "How do I do that?"

"Martha," the Doctor gripped her by the shoulders. "Forgive me for this. It's to save a thousand lives, it means nothing. Honestly, nothing."

Then, he leaned down and snogged the living daylight out of Martha.

Jack stared at the pair of them with undeniable envy. "It's to save a thousand lives," he mused out loud. "Now, that's a pick up line I could use."

The Doctor straightened, leaving Martha gasping for air. "That was nothing?" she asked with a dreamy tone in her voice.

But the Doctor's attention was already on Jack. Gripping him by the shoulders, he planted one on the former Time Agent as well. "You owe me a drink later."

Jack grinned from ear to ear. "You were right," he yelled out after the Doctor. "it's worth it!"

"What did he just do?" Martha asked.

But the Judoons were already onto them. "Find the non-human. Execute."

"Now, listen." Martha turned to the Judoons. "I know who you're looking for. She's this woman. She calls herself Florence."

"Don't bother," Jack murmured quietly to her. "They don't listen."

Predictably, the Judoons simply raised their scanner to the level of her face and proceeded to scan her. "Human," the leader declared. "With non-human traits suspected." A few beeps later. "Non-human elements confirmed. Authorize full scan. What are you? What are you?"

"Genetic transfer," Jack realized. Then laughed at the ingenuity of the plan. "That's brilliant. Oi, Judoon, you'll need to scan me too."

_Well, as much as I'd like to say that I saved the day once more, the credits in this case really belonged to Martha. She was the one who caught onto my plan and executed the rest of it brilliantly, while I was lying unconscious on the floor. The Judoons, despite being thick and slow, were not completely cruel. Once their job was done, they returned us back down to Earth. _

"Sure you don't want to come with me?" the Doctor asked Jack as the two of them climbed back into the cab. "After that, I think we could both do with some down time." Leaning forward, he directed the taxi driver to take them to the street where he had parked the TARDIS.

"Let's make a detour first. I heard someone's little brother is having a 21st tonight. I thought we could pop in and offer her to come along with us." Jack suggested.

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no, no no no no no. That girl already thinks I like her. The last thing I need to do is take her out for a trip. She'll think I'm looking for something serious or worse, domestic!"

Jack rolled his eyes. "Did she or didn't she save us today?"

"I suppose she did." the Doctor had to give him that point.

"She's clever, not scared of aliens, and are quick on her feet." Jack counted off her traits with his fingers. "She's also incredibly gorgeous. Not exactly the London brunette I'm into right now, but her chocolate skin and black hair." Jack purred with pleasure. Turning to his right, he saw the Doctor was staring out at the window, visibly bored. "You're not even listening to me!"

"No, I'm not." Would anyone be listening to Jack when he's like that?

"Why can't we ask her to come along?" Jack demanded to know.

"Why are you so insistent on bringing her with us?" the Doctor retorted.

"Because," Jack exclaimed. "You are lonely. That's why you called me up when Donna declined to come with you. And that's why you called me up asking me if I wanted to do something."

The Doctor stayed silent.

Jack softened his voice. "Look, Doc. You need someone with you in the TARDIS. Sure, I can come along for a trip every now and then. But I'm based here, on Earth. You're always running into situations where you need someone there to look out for you. You need a companion, Doc."

After a pause, the Doctor sighed. "Fine. We'll go ask Martha."

"Good," Jack beamed as the cab came to a stop. "Cause we're here."

The Doctor climbed out of the taxi and sure enough, their taxi had deposited them outside a pub, all decked out with balloons and a birthday banner.

_I had no idea how Jack redirected the cab without me knowing but when we got out, we found Martha just as she was exiting from her brother's birthday party and we gave her the offer of a lifetime. I had to go back in time and take off my tie to prove to her the TARDIS was a time machine. But she agreed to come along. And that was when I realised why I hung out with your Uncle Jack. I never got where I thought I wanted to go. But whether I knew it or not, he was always there looking out for me. _

_Case in point, what he did for me next._

"You're the one that kissed me," Martha said cheekily as she followed the Doctor around the console.

"That was a genetic transfer." How many times was he going to have to explain that before she gets it?

"And if you will wear a tight suit…" she trailed off as she looked at him pointedly.

"Now… don't!" the Doctor turned to Jack and mouthed _Help me_.

Only to discover Jack was too busy bent over double, laughing silently as his misery.

But Martha wasn't done. "And then travel all the way across the universe just to ask me on a date…"

Somehow he knew saying it was all Jack's idea wouldn't help him in the slightest. The Doctor was already regretting his offer. But that was just one more thing on his list of things he regretted doing that day.

"Not a date," Jack cleared his throat as he straightened up and came over to join them. "I mean, I'd love to. But I'd hate to have the Doctor hang out on our first date like a third wheel." He winked at Martha as he slung a companionable arm around her shoulders. "He sulks when he's ignored."

The move was so smooth that even the Doctor was impressed.

"Thanks," he said to Jack later on, when Martha was scouting the TARDIS for a bedroom that she liked.

"It's nothing," Jack grinned.

_Besides, whenever he was around, I always got a great story out of it._

"So?" Jacqueline leaned forward, excited. "You three went off and met Mum?"

Thrown off track, the Doctor paused to answer her question. "Kids, every story in a man's life is like a dot in an impressionist painting. So when you –"

"So that's a no?" Michael interrupted.

The Doctor paused again. "Yup. That's a no."

"What?" he exclaimed as his kids glanced at each other before flopping back against the couch. "Come on!"


	3. Return of the Shirt - Lazarus Experiment

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who isn't mine. Neither is How I Met Your Mother. Simple

**Spoilers for all of Christopher Eccleston's and David Tennant's episodes.**

**Author's Note:** Thanks for the continued support, guys :)

* * *

**Chapter 3: Return of the Shirt/The Lazarus Experiment**

"Kids, when you are a traveller like me, all you're looking for are adventures with a good ending. But not all stories can end that way. The rest ends with someone getting hurt. This is one of those stories. And it all starts with a tuxedo."

"Wow. That was a great story, Dad." His daughter said as she got up from the couch.

Her brother copied her actions and the two of them quickly made their way to the door on the left. "We're going to go watch TV."

"You see," the Doctor raised his voice slightly as the door slammed shut behind his kids. "It was all my tuxedo's fault. The Tuxedo of Doom. Because none of this would have happened if it hadn't been for that tuxedo."

He swivelled his chair around, just in time to watch his kids dash through the other library door, surprised at where they ended up. He sent a fond telepathic thanks to the TARDIS while his kids reluctantly made their way back to the couch.

"Okay, where were we?" he beamed as his kids settled back onto the couch in front of him. "Martha and I had just escaped from –"

"Dad," his daughter interrupted him. "Can't you just skip ahead to the part where you meet Mum? I feel like you have been talking for like a year."

"No, I haven't," the Doctor was indignant. He can't have talked for that long. It's been a couple of hours at the most.

"Really?" Jacqueline raised her eyebrows. "Daleks in Manhattan. Meeting up with Shakespeare. Getting possessed by a sentient sun. And that's all on top of the tropical planets and sight-seeing you guys did. It's almost as if you've regaled us with every single adventure Martha and you had ever had together."

"Well…" the Doctor trailed off as he went through the list in his head. He decided not to let them know that he had actually done exactly what she just accused him of doing. He brightened when he realized something. "Now that you mention it, it has actually been a year between when your Uncle Jack and I met Martha to this story I'm telling you now. Your judgment of time is very good."

Jacqueline didn't seem that delighted on the praise. "So, can you just skip ahead?"

"Honey, all this stuff that I'm telling you is important. It's all part of the story."

"Can I go to the bathroom?" Michael wanted to know.

"No." he knew if he let Michael go, he'd be running for the nearest exit and never coming back.

_So where were we? Oh yes._

The TARDIS landed with a gentle thud and the Doctor applied the hand brake.

"There we go," he beamed. "Perfect landing, which isn't easy in such a tight spot."

Martha rolled her eyes playfully. "You should be used to tight spots by now. Where are we?"

The Doctor gestured at the door. "The end of the line. No place like it."

Excited about what is out there, Martha dashed out of the console room. The Doctor had a small smile on his face as he followed her out.

"Home," Martha stated as she looked around. "You took me home?"

The Doctor nodded as he saw Martha's place for the first time. "In fact, the morning after we left, so you've only been gone about twelve hours. No time at all, really."

"But all the stuff we've done," Martha started to say. "Those months and months of adventures."

The Doctor was busy examining some of Martha's baby photos. Grinning, he turned around and gestured at the mess scattered around the well lived-in room. "Yep, all in one night, relatively speaking. Everything should be just as it was. Books, CDs, laundry." She flushed when he gestured at her clothes hanging on the collapsible clothes rack. "So, back where you were, as promised."

"This is it?" Martha was incredulous.

"Up to you," the Doctor offered.

She looked confused. "What do you mean?"

The Doctor sighed. "Look, when you are out travelling, you tend to forget about the life you left behind. You forget that you have family, responsibilities and a life back on Earth. So I bring them back, and offer them the chance to go back to their old life. No one can travel with me forever."

Martha was quiet, staring at the floor under their feet. She eventually spoke up. "That's what Jack said after the first trip."

"Yeah?" the Doctor asked as he prodded at the phone on the coffee table. It was a red flashing button, indicating a saved message.

"But I just thought I…" she trailed off, evidently expecting him to finish the second half of her sentence.

He was really tempted to press it. "Thought what?"

Martha growled behind him. "Never mind." She marched up to him and jabbed at the phone. "Look, I want to keep travelling with you. Is that okay?"

He didn't have a chance to answer before the phone message started to play.

"Martha, are you there? Pick it up will you?" After a few seconds of silence, Martha's mother continued to talk. "All right then. Pretend that you're out if you like. I was only calling to say that your sister's on the new! And her company's hosting this incredible black tie event tonight. According to your sister, her boss Professor Lazarus will be presenting something remarkable to the world! Something that will change what it means to be human."

"So can I?"

"Can you what?" the Doctor looked confused as he turned his attention back to Martha.

There was something about that message that he should be concerned about. But before he could pinpoint exactly what it was, Martha was already speaking.

"Can I keep travelling with you?"

"Of course," the Doctor shrugged. "It's up to you. Just let me know when you want to take a break and come back. Come on then." He opened the TARDIS door and gestured for her to go in first.

"That's it?" she wanted to know, laughing incredulously at how simple it was.

"Of course," he shrugged again. It really was no big deal. "Same protocol as I give to Jack and all my other companions. Let me know when you need a break. Then, when you feel like you need another adventure, just call me up. Your phone's still set to universal roaming. You can get to me no matter where I am."

"All your other companions?" that seemed to be the only bit Martha seemed to have heard. "How many are there?"

"Well," he answered, scratching the back of his head. "There used to be more. Before…" he trailed off but quickly shook the melancholy off before Martha suspected anything. Clearing his throat, he continued. "But it's just been Jack for a while. And there was Donna, just before Jack and I stumbled into you. But she said no. So here you are."

His answer was meant to make her feel better. But judging from her facial expression, it has had the opposite effect.

"Well, no time like the present," he said, pushing her into the TARDIS. "Let's go."

It was only when the TARDIS dematerialized that he remembered that they had both forgotten something important. "Hold on. Did your mother say he was going to change what it means to be human?"

It turned out that was exactly what Martha's mother had said over the phone, which meant they were going to have to go back to Martha's room. But that was the least of the Doctor's worries. It was a black tie event. That meant, much to his reluctance, he had to bring out his tux.

"Whenever I wear this," he commented as he jerked at his bow-tie. "Something bad always happens."

Martha chuckled. "It's not the outfit, that's just you." She grinned as she glanced sideways at him. "Anyway, I think it suits you. In a James Bond kind of way."

"James Bond?" the Doctor repeated as if it never occurred to him. He brightened. "Really?"

With a small smile on her face, Martha fixed her gaze firmly ahead as they climbed up the grand staircase.

"Come on, then," she said as they entered into the ballroom, her black heels clicking on the polished hardwood floor. "I think I can see Tish. I'll introduce you to her."

But the Doctor's attention was already elsewhere. "Oh look," he said excitedly as he began walking in another direction. "They've got nibbles! I love nibbles." He proved his statement by grabbing three off the tray of a passing waiter.

Martha watched in amazement as he popped three canapés into his mouth in quick succession. She has had just under a year to get used to it, but still, the sight of him stuffing his face and never gaining a pound is both something to admire and envy.

But before the Doctor could make any more comments about his delight at the food, another girl decked on in a black cocktail dress rushed up to Martha and enveloped her in a hug. The two sisters twirled under the light illuminating from the glittering chandeliers above. Turning away from the sight of domestics, the Doctor focused on the machine that stood centrepiece. It looked at first glance, he thought, like something sonic.

But before he could examine it further, Martha brought his attention back to the conversation she was having with her sister.

"So this is, er, the Doctor."

He grinned as he shifted the canapés onto his left hand so he could shake hands with Tish. "Hello."

Tish smiled before shooting Martha a look. "Is he with you?"

"Yeah." Martha nodded.

"Heads up," Tish said, nodding at the door. "Mum's just arrived, with Leo in tow."

"So," the Doctor tried to get Tish's attention. "This Lazarus. Do you know what the professor's going to be doing tonight? That looks like it might be a sonic microfield manipulator."

Tish looked at him blankly before turning back to Martha. "He's a science geek, I should have known. Oh hi Mum!"

"Mum!" Martha greeted her mother with a crushing hug.

"All right," her mother returned the gesture, albeit with a touch of confusion. "what's the occasion?"

"What do you mean?" Martha asked as she pulled away. "Oh, I'm, uh, just pleased to see you, that's all."

"You saw me last night," her mother pointed out.

"I know," Martha chuckled as she tried to brush the issue away. But after months of travelling with her, the Doctor could tell it was her nervous chuckle. And if he could tell, that meant her family could as well. "I just miss you. You're looking good, Leo."

But her mother was sharp. She looked at Martha suspiciously as she said, "you disappeared last night."

"I just went home," Martha replied.

Her mother's gaze shifted to the Doctor standing next to her. "On you own?"

Martha noticed and quickly gestured at the Doctor. "This is a friend of mine. The Doctor."

He forced a smile on his face as he shook hands with Leo. And this was why he avoided domestics.

"Doctor what?" Her mother didn't look impressed.

"No, it's just the Doctor," Martha corrected her. "We've been doing some work together."

"It's lovely to meet you, Mrs Jones," he tried to keep his voice jovial and charming. "Heard a lot about you."

If anything, that seemed to have made Mrs Jones even more suspicious. "Have you? What have you heard, then?"

"Oh, you know, that you're Martha's mother and er," he tried to think. They had spent months and months travelling, surely Martha had mentioned her mother a couple of times. Did he just not pay any attention? "Uh no, actually, that's about it. We haven't had much time to chat. You know, been busy."

"Busy?" Mrs Jones' facial expression turned downright stony. "Doing what, exactly?"

"Oh, you know. Stuff."

_See, kids, nice save. I thought we all got off to a good start. And after I saved her daughter from being consumed by a genetically mutating human monster, I figured I'd be in her good book. But apparently not. Because half an hour later, this happened._

Slap!

"Keep away from my daughter," Francine said vehemently.

"Mum," Martha was aghast. "What are you doing?"

Testing out his jaw, the Doctor muttered. "Slapped by a mum, that's a first."

"He is dangerous," Francine insisted. "Look what happened tonight!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Look around you," Francine turned to see the ambulance men take away the corpse of the late but unlamented Professor Lazarus away covered in a blanket. "Nothing but death and destruction."

Martha insisted. "This isn't his fault. He saved us, all of us!"

"Well, it was Tish who invited everyone to this thing in the first place," Leo reminded their mother. "I'd say technically it's all her fault."

Before Tish could strangle her brother, the sound of a big crash came from the ambulance. Without missing a beat, the Doctor took off.

"Leave him," Marth's mother implored her.

But Martha didn't listen. And neither did Tish.

When the three of them arrived at the back of the ambulance, it was a scene of total devastation. The paramedics' desiccated corpses were scattered all across the van. But Lazarus was no where to be seen.

"Where's he gone?"

The sonic screwdriver picked up the energy signature of fluctuating DNA. "That way," he said, indicating with the screwdriver. "The church."

"Cathedral," Tish corrected him. When both the Doctor and Martha stared at her, she elaborated. "It's Southwark Cathedral. He told me."

They found him, cowering behind the altar.

"I came here before," Lazarus muttered quietly as they approached him slowly. The sound of bones cracking interrupted his speech. "A lifetime ago. I thought I was going to die then. In fact, I was sure of it. I sat here, just a child, the sound of planes and bombs outside."

"The Blitz," the Doctor stated. He looked around. There was a sense of tranquillity and nostalgia in the air within the cathedral. The stones that surrounded them have observed so much of human history. The Doctor could easily picture a small lonely child cowering in the corner as the world outside went to hell in bursts of flame and carnage.

Lazarus' lips twitched as if to form a smile. "You've read about it."

"I was there." Out in an open, disused railway station while German bombs rained down around them.

"You're too young," Lazarus groaned as he arched his back. His bones creaked and cracked.

"So are you."

Lazarus laughed, the sound jarring with that of cracking bones. "In the morning, the fire had died, and I was still alive. I swore I'd never face death like that again. So defenceless. I would arm myself, fight back, defeat it."

That was so human, the Doctor thought as he paced around Lazarus, staring up at the bell tower that rose up above them.

"He's going to change again any minute," Martha said quietly to him as he stopped beside him.

"I know," the Doctor replied as he continued staring up at the bell tower. "If I can get him up into the bell tower somehow, I've an idea that might work."

"Up there?" Martha said.

"You're so sentimental, Doctor." Lazarus sneered. "Maybe you are older than you look."

He couldn't have been more right. But the Doctor didn't bother to let him know that. Instead, he said. "I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired. Tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything turn to dust." Wasn't that the truth? "If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone."

"That's a price worth paying," Lazarus declared with conviction as he slowly got onto his feet. "I will feed soon, and you have no way of stopping me."

"Leave him, Lazarus!" Martha stepped forward. "He's old and bitter. I thought you had a taste for fresher meat."

With that, she took off for the staircase leading up to the tower. Tish quickly followed after her, narrowly avoiding Lazarus, who had lunged after them.

_The bond between siblings, kids, it's a powerful thing. While Martha and her sister successfully lured Lazarus up to the top of the bell tower, I was doing my best trying to remember everything Beethoven ever taught me about playing the organ. With a bit of jiggery pokery with the sonic screwdriver, the acoustic inside the cathedral took care of the rest. In the end, Lazarus did not manage to defeat death. He died, an old man, broken and alone on the floor of the cathedral where he once hid as a child._

_Like T.S. Eliot once said, this is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper._

_When the Jones family saw that I had managed to return both Martha and Tish relatively unscathed from the event, I managed to win everyone over._

Slap!

_Well almost everyone. But I don't want to talk about it._

After parking the TARDIS out of Martha's home, the Doctor waited in the console room while Martha spent the rest of the night comforting her family members.

"Right then, off we go. The open road," he declared, jumping onto his feet as soon as Martha walked into the TARDIS. "There is a burst of starfire right over the coast of Meta Sigmafolio. Oh, the sky is like oil on water. Fancy a look? Or," he added as another train of thought entered his mind. "Back in time. We could… I don't know, Charles II? Henry VIII? I know! What about Agatha Christie? I'd love to meet Agatha Christie! I bet she's brilliant." He looked at Martha's solemn expression and nodded. Slowly. He figured this was coming. "Okay."

"I just can't."

He knew. "Yeah."

"Being back here," she gestured with her hands. "It made me realize that through all those adventures we were having, I was just escaping. As much as I'd love to, I can't travel with you forever. Spent all these years training to be a doctor. I can't let that all go to best. Plus," she sighed at this. "I've got my family to deal with. As dysfunctional as we are together, we're still a family and I love them. I can't leave them."

"Of course not," he agreed. He smiled at her. It was a small but heartfelt smile to show it really was okay. "Thank you."

"You gonna be all right?"

"Always," he nodded, hopefully convincingly. "Yeah."

"Right then." Martha managed a small smile as she rose up on her toes and quickly pecked him on the cheek.

Without another word, she exited the TARDIS for the last time.

_Kids, I thought that was the end. But it turned out your Aunt Martha had a couple of more things to say to me. Some things that she needed to get off her chest._

"Cause the thing is, it's like my friend Vicky. She lived with this bloke. Student housing, there were five of them, all packed in, and this bloke was called Sean. And she loved him, she did. She completely adored him. Spent all day long talking about him."

To say the Doctor was confused would have been an understatement. "Is this going anywhere?"

"Yes!" Martha practically shouted at him, forcing him to quickly straighten up and cross his arms, putting on his serious face.

"Cause he never looked at her twice." Martha looked pointedly at him. That was when the Doctor understood. He looked down, unable to find the suitable words to say. "I mean, he liked her, but that was it. And she wasted years pining after him, years of her life, 'cause while he was around, she never looked at anyone else. And I told her, I always said to her, time and time again. I said: get out."

Martha let out a small chuckle. "The funny thing is, my family saw just after one meeting what you didn't see in a year. They gave me their blessing and best wishes. Well," she amended after a pause. "Almost everyone. But I think it's time I took my own advice. So this is me, getting out."

She reached into her pocket and took out her mobile phone. "Keep that. Cause I'm not having you disappear. If that rings, _when_ that rings, you better come running. Got it?"

"Got it," he nodded.

"I'll see you again, mister," she said with a bright grin on her face, feeling lighter than she had in months. With one hand on the TARDIS door, she turned around and told him, "and take care in the future. And the past. And whatever other time period you find yourself in. Okay?"

"Okay," he smiled in response.

_And that's how it ended with your Aunt Martha. No more adventures and not the ending she had hoped for, just a whole lot of hurt. And just like that, all those wonderful memories of us exploring distant planets, the distant past and sparkling future were replaced by this one –_

"So this is me. Getting out."

_But you know, bad as that was, within a couple of years, your Aunt Martha met the man of her dreams, got married and how she has three beautiful children. And all of that would have never happened if she hadn't met me and then was brave enough to leave. So that's the upside of hurt. Sometimes it happens for a reason._

The Doctor ended the story solemnly. There was a moment of silence as his children absorbed it all. He smiled, pleasantly pleased they had taken the lesson in so well.

Then his son just had to go and ruin it.

"Wow, so you got slapped. Again."

"Is that all you're taking away from this story?"

"You got slapped," Michael repeated. His sister, sitting next to him, tried to smother her laughter with her hand.

"Hey, she's a mum," the Doctor tried to defend himself. "Mums are scary!"

_And don't get me started about your grandmother. She's the scariest mum of them all._


	4. Wait For It - The Water of Mars

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who isn't mine. Neither is How I Met Your Mother. Simple

**Spoilers for all of Christopher Eccleston's and David Tennant's episodes.**

**Author's Note: **As promised, a quick update with chapter 4. Thanks again for the continued support :)

* * *

**Chapter 4: Wait For It/The Water of Mars**

_Kids, there's more than one version of how I met your mother. You know the short version, how I woke up to the sensation of your mother snogging the life out of me. But there's a bigger story, the story of how I became who I had to become before I could meet her. And that story begins… here._

"State your name, rank, and intention."

When staring down at the barrel of a gun, the Doctor's policy has always been to be honest. "The Doctor." Pause. "Doctor." Oh, what's the best way to phrase this? "Fun."

He wasn't looking for trouble. He really wasn't. He just wanted to take some time off after Martha's departure and do some low-key stuff like sight-seeing. Jack couldn't make it because he had a situation back on Earth to deal with. Judging by the sound of breaking glass in the background, the Doctor had a sneaking suspicion it was relationship troubles. Again.

Still, he had always wanted to come and see the red planet. As he climbed over the peak of a small hill, he was delighted and surprise to see that a human colony had set up camp there. It was an absolutely beautiful scene with the red dusty plains in the background. He was just going to have a quick look before returning to the TARDIS but he was then arrested for trespassing. While the crew debated on what they should do with him, the Doctor was distracted by a sense of urgency that was niggling away in the back of his mind. There was something wrong about this place. No, that's not right. There was something wrong about this time.

"If we could cut the chat, everyone," the female captain stated. Her voice was quiet but full of authority. Normally, he would have been pleased by the confidence she had in her role but the Doctor had more pressing concerns.

Like the gun that she was pointing at her.

"Actually," he began. "Chat's second on my list, the first being gun pointed at my head." He pondered about it for a second before adding thoughtfully. "Which then puts my head second and chat third, I think. Gun, head, chat, yeah. I hate lists. But you could hurt someone with that thing. Just put it down."

The captain barely cracked a smile at his ramble. "Oh, you'd like that."

"Can you find me someone who wouldn't?"

She wasn't fazed. "Why should I trust you?"

"Because I give you my word," he said seriously. "And forty million miles away from home, my word is all you've got."

The captain stared at him for a second before slowly lowering her weapon. "Keep Gadget covering him."

Great, he hated funny robots.

So perhaps they didn't get off to the great start, the Doctor thought as the crew resumed debating where he came from and what he should do with them. He got fed up and turned when the deputy captain, Ed, speculated that he was from the Branson Inheritance.

"Right, yes, okay," the Doctor answered, turning around to face him. "You got me. So, I'm the Doctor, and you are?"

"Oh come on," the captain said, forcing the Doctor to turn back around and face her. "We're the first off-world colonists in history. Everyone on planet Earth knows who we are."

"You're the first?" the Doctor could scarcely believe in. "The very first humans on Mars? Then this is…"

In unison, they said, "Bowie Base One."

"Number one," the Doctor murmured at the revelation. "Founded July the first, 2058. Established Bowie Base One in the Gusev Crater." He recalled an article he read on the red planet's history whilst on route here. "You've been here, how long?"

"Seventeen months."

"2059," the Doctor mentally corrected himself as he stared around the room in amazement. Oh, how did he not notice it when he first came in? All around the room, the machineries that powered the colony, the containers stacked high with equipment and resources, even the steel console workstation they were all crowded around – they were all 21st century technology.

"It's 2059, right now," he repeated, he clenched his head as the revelations from the articles he had read continued pouring in. "Oh! My head is so stupid. You're Captain Adelaide Brooke."

_Obituary: Captain Adelaide Brooke_

_Born 1999 – Died 2059_

"And Ed," he turned around. "You're Deputy Edward Gold."

_Obituary: Deputy Edward Gold_

_Born 2008 – Died 2059_

Looking around the room, he pointed at the black-haired man standing in the back. "Tarak Ital, MD." The Doctor named the Pakistani.

_Obituary: Tarak Ital, MD_

_Born 2026 – Died 2059_

The Doctor looked around for Tarak's assistant and found him. "Nurse Yuri Kerenski." The Russian looked pleasantly surprised at being recognized.

_Obituary: Yuri Kerenski, Nurse_

_Born 2032 – Died 2059_

"Senior Technician Steffi Ehrlich."

_Obituary: Steffi Ehrlich, Senior Technician_

_Born 2021 – Died 2059_

"Junior Technician Roman Groom." He said to the young man controlling the robot.

_Obituary: Roman Groom_

_Born 2034 – Died 2059_

And the last one in the room. "Geologist Mia Bennett."

_Obituary: Mia Bennett, Geologist_

_Born 2032 – Died 2059_

Looking at her startled young face, the Doctor couldn't help but murmur out loud, "you are only twenty-seven years old."

"As I said, Doctor," unaware of the turmoil swirling inside the Doctor's head, Captain Brooke said in a level tone. "Everyone knows our names."

"Oh," the Doctor replied. If only she knew. "They'll never forget them." He had a sinking feeling as the niggling sensation in the back of his mind grew stronger and stronger. "What's the date today? What is it?" He spun around the room wildly, looking for a calendar or something, anything that'll give him an indication of exactly how much trouble he was in. "Tell me the exact date."

"November the 21st," Captain Brooke answered, slowly, as if she was surprised he didn't know. "2059."

Another article flashed up in the back of his mind, along with the satellite footage of a mushroom explosion ballooning out from the surface of the red planet. Date: November 21st, 2059.

"Right. Okay, fine," the Doctor said, nodding slowly. He had read those articles out of curiosity. He was collecting trivia knowledge about the history of the planet he was about to visit like he always did. But now, as he looked around the room at the people who were standing there with him, alive and breathing, he thought about short lives these brave pioneers have led, only for them to be extinguished in the blink of an eye.

"Is there something wrong?" Steffi, the German Senior Technician, inquired.

Mia was even more confused about the Doctor's strange behaviour. "What's so important about my age?"

But the Doctor didn't pay them any notice. Focusing on the immediate problem at hand, he decided slowly. "I should go. I really should go."

There was nothing he could do.

Looking around the room at them all one last time, he couldn't help but add, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry with all of my hearts, but it's one of those very rare times when I've got no choice. It's been an honour," he walked up to each of them and shook their hands earnestly. "Seriously, a very great honour to meet you all. The Martian pioneers." He finished with a gentle pat on Gadget the robot's head.

Then another thought popped into his head as he did a head count of the people who were in the room. "There's the other two. Hold on. Margaret Cain and Andrew Stone."

At his question, Deputy Ed walked over to the work station and said to the computer monitor, "Maggie, if you want to meet the only new human being that you're going to see in the next five years, better come take a look."

His only reply was an inhuman roar sounding over the speaker system.

"What was that?" Mia asked with a slight tremor in her voice.

This was bad. It was already beginning. "Oh, I really should go."

But everybody's attention was focused on the strange sound they had just heard. They all moved to join Ed around the computer monitor.

"This is Central. Biodome report immediately," Ed spoke over the intercom.

His captain didn't waste time. "Show me the Biodome."

From his lone position away from the work station, the Doctor could tell by their expression that the cameras must be down. The sinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach was getting worse. Whatever it was that triggered the nuclear blast of the base was already starting and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

It was a fixed point in time.

"I'm going over," Captain Brooke decided. "Doctor, with me."

Scratching the back of his ear, the Doctor hedged. "Yeah, I'm sorry. Er, I'd love to help, but I'm leaving right now."

The captain was not amused. "Take his spacesuit. Lock it up," she gave the order to Steffi. She then turned her attention back to the Doctor. "This started as soon as you arrived. So you're not going anywhere, except with me."

"I was afraid you were going to say that," the Doctor mumbled quietly underneath his breath.

The design of Bowie Base One was quite simple, the Doctor discovered on his walk along Tunnel 1 towards the Biodome. Everything was connected to the Central Dome through long tunnels in a hub-and-spoke distribution network. But he didn't have time to sightsee and marvel at the simple yet remarkable way the first off-world colony had established their roots here. He knew, within hours, they were all going to be in big trouble, and he couldn't stick around for that.

Minutes later, as he and Captain Brooke stood in the Biodome airlock, staring at the human yet alien faces of Andy and freshly contaminated Tarak, the Doctor cursed at his own miscalculation even as he continued to study the two men through the glass panel.

"Can you talk?" he asked. The men continued to stare at him with dilated white eyes. They still looked largely human save for their unblinking gaze and their cracked mouth, the inside of which looked blackened and exuding an endless supply of water. Captain Brooke had already ordered the shutdown of all water supplies but the Doctor was afraid it might already be too late for Andy, Tarak and Maggie. "Human beings are sixty per cent water, which makes them the perfect host."

"What for?" Captain Brooke asked.

"I don't know," the Doctor replied. He turned to face the captain and said seriously, "I never will. Because I've got to go. Whatever's started here, I can't see it to the end. I can't."

There was nothing he could do.

Three trips down the tunnel later, he was mentally and vocally wondering why the crew didn't bother to bring bikes with them when they came to Mars. Back in the Central Dome, the remaining five crew members were busy carrying out Action Procedure One. But the Doctor knew that couldn't be right, because the crew of Bowie Base One never made it off the planet. He should leave. He really should leave. There was no point in him investigating the ice field with Captain Brooke. It won't change the eventual outcome.

Yet here he was, standing in the water extraction chamber with Captain Brooke, overlooking the ice field of Mars.

"You don't look like a coward," Captain Brooke commented as they both turned their attention to the computer monitors so that they could date the infection. "But all you've wanted to do is leave. You know so much about us."

The Doctor tried to shrug it off. "Well, you're famous."

She glanced over at him, "It's like you know more."

He stared at her, trying to find the right words to say. "This moment," he began, turning his attention back to the computer screen, "this precise moment in time, it's like, I mean, it's only a theory, what do I know, but I think certain moments in time are fixed. Tiny, precious moments. Everything else is in flux, anything can happen, but those certain moments, they have to stand."

"This base on Mars with you, Adelaide Brooke," he looked back at her, "this is one vital moment. What happens here must always happen. And that's how you create history."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Imagine it, Adelaide," he dropped her title, "if you began a journey that takes the human race all the way out to the stars. It begins with you, and then your granddaughter, you inspire her, so that in thirty years Susie Fontana Brooke is the pilot of the first lightspeed ship to Proxima Centauri. And then everywhere."

He smiled as he elaborated. "With her children, and her children's children forging the way. To the Dragon Star, the Celestial Belt of the Winter Queen. The Map of the Watersnake Wormholes. One day a Brooke will even fall in love with a Trandorian prince, that's the start of a whole new species. But everything starts with you, Adelaide, right here, today. Imagine."

"Who are you?" she asked, her eyes misty with the wonder and fear of the knowledge he was imparting to her. "Why are you telling me this? Doctor, why tell me?"

And there it was, the sad but unavoidable truth, "As consolation."

Before they could say anything more, their computer search revealed the source of the problem – one small replacement filter that didn't fit.

"That means the infection arrived today," Captain Brooke realized, "and the water's only cycled out of the Biodome after a week. The rest of us can't be infected. We can leave."

When they returned to the Central Dome, the hub was abuzz with activity. The work station was almost completely stripped barren, save for a couple of computer screens, with most of the main equipment already loaded up into the ignited shuttle. The crew were now loading as many protein packs as they can before evacuating.

Captain Brooke retrieved the Doctor's spacesuit and returned it to him.

"Now get to your ship," she said. "I'm saving my people, you save yourself. I know what this moment is. It's the moment we escape. Now get out."

With one finale small but determined smile, she turned to join the rest of her crew.

The Doctor stood, rooted on the spot as he took in his surroundings. Once you strip away the frantic rush of movements against time, it was a scene of determination and optimism. But he couldn't share in their enthusiasm.

Suddenly, Captain Brooke detected what he had already noticed, "What the hell's that noise? Mia, you lot, shut up."

As they all stopped moving, the sound became more audible. The computer screen at the work station was emitting a regular monotone beep, signalling two pressures on top of the module they were in.

"That means they're on the roof?" Steffi wondered out loud, looking up at the ceiling with trepidation.

"How did they get inside the Dome?" Yuri wanted to know.

"They used the maintenance shafts," Ed guessed.

"The shaft's open and they haven't got spacesuits," Mia said.

"They breathe water," Ed pointed out.

"But they'd freeze," Steffi countered.

Yuri shook his head, "They've got that internal fission."

"But we're safe," Mia said, "they can't get through, can they?"

When no one reassured her, she repeated, "Can they?"

In the silence that followed, they could all hear the roof creaking, as if under great pressure.

"This place is airtight," Roman said, his voice lacking his usual confidence and bravado.

"Can it get through?" Steffi asked. "Ed, can it get through?"

"I don't know!" Ed said in frustration. "Water itself isn't motile, but it has some sort of persistence."

"Everyone, listen to me," Captain Brook barked out. "That's ten feet of steel-combination up there. We need all the protein packs or we're going to starve. Now keep working. Roman," she ordered the junior technician, "watch the ceiling. Ed, get to the shuttle. Fire it up!"

Her words diverted the crew's attention and temporarily kept their fears at bay. The rush of movements was back as they all hurried back to loading up the protein packs. They did not have any time to spare and were oblivious to the Doctor, who was still standing there, by the exit door, watching them with an indecipherable expression on his face. With one final look, he gathered up his resolve, turned around, and headed for the door.

Only to be stopped at the airlock.

"Tell me what happens."

The Doctor lifted his eyes from the access panel up to the camera, knowing Captain Brooke was watching in the communication alcove.

"I don't know," he tried to brush it away.

"Yes, you do," even with the chaotic noise behind her, her voice was calm and steady as a rock. "Now tell me."

He paused, and decided to say instead, "You should be with the others."

"Tell me!" she ordered him, her voice rising with her frustration. "I could ramp up the pressure in that airlock and crush you."

He knew it too, "Except you won't."

"Captain," Steffi's voice could be heard over the intercom. "We need you right now."

"I'll be right there," Captain Brooke replied.

The Doctor sighed as his resolve weakened. He had already told her about her granddaughter. What was a little more consolation?

"You're taking Action One," he told her. "There are four more standard action procedures. And Action Five is?"

"Detonation," Captain Brooke said with a small voice.

"The finale option," he confirmed. "The nuclear device at the heart of the Central Dome. Today, on the twenty-first of November 2059, Captain Brooke activates that device, taking the base and all her crew members with her. No one ever knows why." And now he did. "But you were saving Earth. That's what inspires your granddaughter. She takes your people out into the galaxy because you die on Mars. You die today," he repeated. "She flies out there like she's trying to meet you."

"I won't die," she stated, determination ringing clear in her voice. "I will not."

"But your death creates the future." And there was no way to get around that hard fixed fact.

"Help me," she said. And he knew it took a lot for someone as strong as Captain Brooke to be asking for help. It made him feel even worse. "Why won't you help, Doctor? If you know all of this, why can't you change it?"

"I can't," his voice was barely a whisper now.

"Why can't you find a way? You could tell me, I don't know –"

"I'm sorry but I can't," he said regretfully but firmly. "Sometimes I can, sometimes I do. Most times I can save someone, or anyone. But not you. Your death is fixed in time forever. And that's right."

"You'll die here too."

"No."

"What's going to save you?"

He answered with unshakable faith, "Captain Adelaide Brooke."

The silence that followed was only broken by the sound of the Airlock being unlocked.

"Damn you," came her final words over the intercom before she rushed out to re-join her crew members.

"Water!" Roman's voice suddenly came over the intercom. "We've got water!"

The Doctor stayed rooted in front of the unlocked door as he listened in to Mia's cries.

"Captain! Get back! Get back! Captain! Don't touch it, Roman. Get back. Get back."

"Everyone," Captain Brooke ordered, "we're abandoning this section. Get back to the shuttle. Yuri, lead the way. Section B corridor. Now!"

"Close it!" came the second order as the sound of rushing water suddenly filled the room.

"Yuri, did the water touch you?" Mia could be heard asking.

"I'm safe."

"Did it touch you?" Steffi demanded to know. "Yuri, did that water touch you?"

"I'm clean. I'm dry."

"Everyone, listen to me," Captain Brooke's voice rang out clear and determined. "Take every pack that you can. We'll go round. We'll make our way out through Section F."

Sounds of water became louder, signalling its arrival into the control room.

"Steffi, get back!"

"Steffi, we'll come and get you, okay? We'll come and get you!"

"Get back!"

"Captain!"

"We're coming, Steffi. Hold on!"

"Captain, it's inside!"

"Steffi!"

Closing his eyes, the Doctor opened the door and stepped out.

_Kids, in most of the stories I have told you so far, I played the role of the hero, charging in to save the day. This was not one of those occasions. It couldn't be one of those occasions. Fixed points in time should never be tampered with. But repeating that over and over again in my head could not drown out the sounds of Steffi sobbing as she listened to the video message of her two little girls babbling at her cheerfully in German. I heard with a sinking heart the confidence in Deputy Ed's voice as he reassured Captain that they were ready for departure. Even as the space shuttle's engines were fired up, I knew the futility of their actions. But they never gave up. That remarkable human instinct to keep surviving against all odds. _

_With every step I took, I was further and further away from the base, but their voices still came through to me. The rush of voices speaking over the top of each other as they tried to transport as much of what they needed onto the shuttle. _

"Roman, come on. With me."

"You'd better go."

"Don't just stand there," Captain Brooke ordered. "Move."

"You'd really better go without me," Roman said. "I'm sorry, Captain. One drop."

"Roman! Roman!"

_And just like that, the youngest member, Roman Groom, was lost. He was only twenty-five years old. Even now, I can't forget how he tried to stay brave right till the end. I remember continuing walking blindly for a minute or so, as Mia railed at the rest of the crew, demanding they go back and get Roman. There were sounds of struggle as Yuri had to physically restrain her, repeatedly uttering the words "I'm so sorry."_

_Then, the inevitable happened._

"Captain," Ed's voice came over the intercom. "The shuttle is down."

"What the hell do you mean?"

"Compromised," came the word through gritted teeth. "It was Maggie."

"Get out of there," Adelaide said.

"Too late," Ed replied. "They want this ship to get to Earth. Got no choice."

Keep walking, the Doctor mentally chanted. I can't change anything, just keep walking.

"Hated it, Adelaide. This bloody job, argh!" he broke off in pain. "You never gave me a chance. You could never forgive me." Even through the intercom, the Doctor could hear that Ed didn't really mean the things he was saying.

"See you later."

With those final words, the space shuttle erupted in a ball of flame. The force of the explosion ripped out sections of the connecting tunnel. Debris fell down towards the ground like rain. The shockwave knocked the Doctor off his feet.

_In the moments following the explosion, I tried to remember if preserving fixed points in time was worth it. I wasn't just a Time Lord, I was the last of the Time Lords. My control snapped and then…_

Blinking away the memories, the Doctor looked at his children and simply said, "I did something I'm not proud of."

_I went back._

The TARDIS materialised with the usual sequence of groans and Mia quickly rushed out. Yuri quickly followed. The Doctor smiled as he and Captain Brooke also exited the TARDIS onto a snowy street back on Earth. His landing, for once, was impeccable. They were just in front of Captain Brooke's house.

"What is that thing?" Mia was visibly in shock. "It's bigger. I mean, it's bigger on the inside. Who the hell are you?"

With those final words, she ran off.

Captain Brooke kept her eyes on the Doctor. "Look after her," she told Yuri.

He didn't hesitate. "Yes, ma'am." With that, he ran off after her.

"You saved us," Captain Brooke stated, though there was no hint of gratitude in her tone.

"Just think though," he smiled. "Your daughter, and your daughter's daughter, you can see them again. Family reunion."

"But I'm supposed to be dead. Susie, my granddaughter. The person she's supposed to become might never exist now."

"Nah!" he shrugged it off. "Captain Adelaide can inspire her face to face. Different details, but the story's the same."

"You can't know that," she argued. "And if my family changes, the whole of history could change. The future of the human race. No one should have that much power."

"Tough." The triumph he had felt was quickly wearing off. "Adelaide, I've done this sort of thing before. In small ways, saved some little people, but never someone as important as you. Oh, I'm good."

"Little people?" she demanded. "What, like Mia and Yuri? Who decides they're so unimportant? You?"

He nodded. "For a long time now, I thought I was just a survivor, but I'm not. I'm the winner. That's who I am. The Time Lord Victorious."

Captain Brooke stared at him steadily. "Is there nothing you can't do?"

"Not anymore."

"And there's no one to stop you." It wasn't a question.

But he answered anyway, "No."

"This is wrong, Doctor. I don't care who you are. The Time Lord Victorious is wrong."

With those final words, she went into her house. The Doctor had turned and started heading back towards the TARDIS when he heard the sound of a gunshot from behind. Whirling around, he backed up until his back hit the wooden door. The Doctor reeled from the shock as he felt his memories being rewritten. Captain Brooke's death remained November 21st 2059, now on Earth instead of Mars. The two remaining survivors, Yuri and Mia, ended up shedding light on the mystery of what transpired on Mars. And Susie Fontana Brooke went on to follow in her legendary grandmother's footsteps.

With her sacrifice, the timeline shifted but remained largely intact. In the end, Captain Adelaide Brooke was a bigger person than he was.

"I've gone too far," the Doctor gasped with dawning horror.

Stumbling back into the TARDIS, the Doctor rushed to the console and dialled a familiar number.

"Jack," he said as soon as his friend picked up the phone. "I need help."

_Kids, funny thing about destiny. I thought I had royally screwed everything up. At Bowie Base One, with no one to stop me, I had gone too far. I lost touch with what I can and can't do. I needed to be stopped. But I was wrong. My destiny was to stay a traveller, roaming the universe._

_Your Uncle Jack helped prop me back onto my feet. And what followed was a new era of my life, a time unlike anything that came before it. It's funny looking back at those days, knowing now exactly what I was heading towards, and what was heading towards me. I continued travelling, and it was a good thing I did._

_Because if I didn't, I never would have met your mother._


	5. The Time Travellers - Human Nature

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who isn't mine. Neither is How I Met Your Mother. Simple

**Spoilers for all of Christopher Eccleston's and David Tennant's episodes.**

**Author's Note: **Sorry for the minor delay guys. Over the past week, I read the Hunger Games trilogy. Loved the first two books, but the third one sort of left me drained and devoid of all humour and positive energy. So motivating myself to write this chapter was sort of challenging.

* * *

**Chapter 5: The Time Travellers/Human Nature**

"So kids," shaking away the melancholy from the previous story, the Doctor began brightly, "would you like to hear about the story about the time I went human?"

His kids sighed and turned to face each other.

"Why does he even ask?" Michael wanted to know.

"I know," his sister said as she snagged a couch cushion from behind her and tucked it underneath her chin, "he's just going to tell us anyway."

The Doctor made a face and decided to let that one pass. After all, he was really excited about this particular adventure. So instead, he blithely continued, "I sure am."

_It all began when your Uncle Jack and I ran back into the TARDIS and I said –_

"Get down!" the Doctor roared.

Just as they flattened themselves onto the floor, a shot of green blast came from over their shoulders, hitting the TARDIS console and sending electrical sparks flying everywhere. Kicking the door close behind him, the Doctor grabbed Jack's shoulders and demanded to know, "Did they see you?"

"I don't know."

"But did they see you?" he repeated.

"I don't know." Jack shrugged his shoulders nervously. "I was too busy running."

"Jack," the Doctor said as he gripped Jack hard by the shoulders, "it's important. Did they see your face?"

Jack stared into the Doctor's eyes for a minute before shaking his head. "No," he decided, "they couldn't have."

That made things a lot easier. The Doctor quickly leapt up to the console and quickly set the TARDIS into the dematerialization sequence. "Off we go!"

His joy was short-lived when he realized they were following us.

"Wait, how did they get their hands on Time Agent technology?" Jack asked when he joined the Doctor in front of the computer screen and saw the alien device tracking their every move through the vortex.

"Stole it probably," the Doctor's tone was grim as he gazed intensely at the screen. "Now that they can follow us wherever we go, right across the universe, they're never going to stop." Then, as if he had seemingly come to a decision, he ducked underneath the console and rummaged through the mess until he found what he was looking for. "Right, here's what we're going to do." He held up the object as if it was a prized possession.

"A pocket watch?" Jack was not impressed.

"This is more than just a pocket watch," the Doctor said as he pushed a lever on the console. A headset dropped down from the ceiling. He then locked the pocket watch onto the headset.

"Those creatures," the Doctor explained as he turned his attention back to the console and fine-tuned the controls, "are hunters. They can sniff out anyone and me being a Time Lord, well, I'm unique. As long as they have a vortex manipulator on hand, they can track me down across the whole of time and space just by using their remarkable sense of smell. Good news is they have a short lifespan. Three months and they'll pass away, like mayflies, really. So that's what we're going to do, hide away and wait for them to die. Since they can track me down as a Time Lord, I'm going to become human instead. This watch is going to be me."

"Right, okay, gotcha," Jack nodded along to the Doctor's rambling explanation. Then he caught onto the Doctor's last sentence. "No, hold on. Sorry, you've completely lost me."

"Chameleon arch," the Doctor said, gesturing at the headset as he continued tweaking away at the controls. "Rewrites my biology. Literally changes every single cell in my body. I've set it to human."

"There's got to be another way," Jack insisted. He wasn't sure what was going on but judging by the pained expression on the Doctor's face, he was going to guess it wasn't good. "Look, I've got a sonic blaster, maybe we could –"

"No!" the Doctor said forcefully. Shaking his head, he glanced over at Jack. "I've got to give them a chance. Let things run their course. I think it'll do the universe a lot of good without me around for a while."

"Don't say that," Jack interrupted.

The Doctor twisted his lips but didn't say any more on that topic. "Three months and it'll be over," he said instead as he put the headset on. "Now, the TARDIS will take care of everything. Invent a life story for me, find me a setting and integrate me. Can't do the same for you. You'll just have to improvise. I should have just enough residual awareness to let you in."

"Okay." When he noticed the slight tremble in the way the Doctor's hands adjusted the headset, Jack couldn't help but ask, "But, hold on, if you're going to rewrite every cell, isn't it going to hurt?"

_Yeah, it was painful. Excruciatingly so._

_Kids, up until that point in time, I never thought I'd use the Chameleon Arch. I've wondered it about it now and again throughout my travels, thinking what could possibly make me desperate enough to escape my identity and create a new one. _

_Now, this next bit, I don't know how to describe it. If you have a mental image of me being physically trapped inside a pocket watch, then get it out of your head. It's nothing like that. Don't laugh, Michael. Even without the psychic link, I can tell by your face what you are thinking. It's a lot more complicated than a simple teleportation of a person from the physical realm that you see into a smaller more confined space within the –_

"Dad," his daughter cut him off mid-sentence, "why couldn't you have just said it's not like a miniature version of you was living inside a watch for three months?"

The Doctor sulked for a moment before continuing. His kids were really getting too clever for their own good. "Fine," he relented, "it wasn't like a miniature version of me living inside a watch for three months."

"There you go," nodding her approval, his daughter leaned back against the couch.

"So what was it like?" Michael asked.

"Well," the Doctor thought about it for a long minute, "mentally reach out to the limits of your mind." Both of his children closed their eyes and obeyed. "Then go a bit further. Keep going, reaching out to the edges until you can't anymore. Imagine all of that. All your thoughts, memories, emotions, everything – that is who you are. The physical body, that's just what you inhabit. But your mind, that's what makes you the unique beings that you are. Imagine taking all that and," with his hands held up in the air, the Doctor waved them around as he thought of an appropriate phrase, "and putting them inside a pocket watch."

His children opened their eyes and shot him identical wry looks.

"That sentence got away from you, didn't it?" Jacqueline wanted to know, a playful smile on the corner of her lips.

"It got away from me, yeah," the Doctor trailed off as he pulled out his glasses. He didn't put them on, just opened and closed the temple arms. After a moment, he shook off the weird mood he was in and continued with his story.

_So where was I? Oh yes, so there I was, in the watch. It was weird, inhabiting a watch. The closest analogy I can ever come up with, and believe me, I've tried many over the years in my attempt to explain this to your mother, is when you let your mind wander away in a daydream so deep and so real that perceptions of the outside world become faded and non-existent. Of course, in my case, it was not by choice. I was literally lost in a daydream of my own creation, wandering the caverns of my own mind because I had no sensory inputs from outside. _

_Well, that's not entirely true. I still had the psychic field that filters through some perception of the outside world. Whenever someone in proximity let their mental guards down, consciously or otherwise, I can get glimpses of their thoughts or emotions. But the rest of the time, I was basically left to my own devices, thinking and contemplating my life. _

_The first inkling I got must have been when we first landed back on Earth. I, the human version of me at least, was stumbling out all confused, clutching onto the pocket watch as if I wasn't even aware I had it in my hands. I couldn't sense Jack anywhere nearby but I wasn't sensing any alarm from the human me so I guess I was probably just waiting for him to come back and get me. The next thing I knew was –_

"Are you alright, mate?" a young female voice called out softly from a distance.

"Yeah," the Doctor heard himself, now officially John Smith, replying, grunting with effort to keep his voice steady. Hm… his voice was the same as ever, but not quite as steady. The Doctor put that down to the recent transformation by the lovely Chameleon Arch.

"Too much to drink?" the young female teased. He could hear the warmth in her voice.

"Something like that," John waved the question away vaguely.

The girl hummed in response. The Doctor could detect hints of sympathy and amusement in her voice. "Maybe it's time you went home."

"Yeah," John repeated.

Just then, the Doctor could sense Jack's presence coming towards them. "Oh good," Jack called out, his voice drawing nearer and nearer, "you're still here. I still need to figure out where we are now. The instructions you and the TARDIS gave me are not helpful. Not helpful at all!" There was a brief pause. "Oh hello."

Jack must have noticed the female too.

"Captain Jack Harknass, and who are you?"

_Oh don't start_, the Doctor groaned out loud – or the mental equivalent of that. He knew exactly what Jack's defence would be too. _I was just saying hello_. Too focused mentally on exactly how he was going to reprimand Jack once this was all over, the Doctor only resurfaced when he caught Jack's feelings of surprise and alarm at whatever the stranger had said in response to his question.

"Nice to meet you," Jack replied in his usual charming manner but mentally, Jack was practically shouting. The initial alarm was gone, replaced by a sense of disbelief. "Hey listen, could you help us out a little bit? My friend and I got a little bit lost. We were trying to get to the CBD but somehow we wound up here."

"Oh sure, that's easy," the female answered in her cheery tone, "you guys are in Peckham. If you guys head up that way and then turn right, you can catch a train from Danford Station and arrive in the city in twenty minutes or so."

"Thanks," relief was all too evident in Jack's voice. "Anyway, we better go."

"No problem," the female replied warmly. "I better go too. My boyfriend's probably going to be looking for me. Well, if he's still my boyfriend, that is."

"What happened?" Jack asked.

"Oh nothing," she sighed, indicating it was clearly something. "My lift to a New Year's Eve party last night fell through at the last minute. Mum's douche of a boyfriend's car broke down. It was the axle or something. But it doesn't matter because Mickey's clearly going to think I just didn't want to go with him. He can be a little insecure like that sometimes."

"Is it the new year already?" John interrupted the conversation. His speech had steadied but it was clear there was still some residual confusion.

The Doctor figured the confusion was probably just to mask whatever happens until Jack could get the pair of them to wherever John Smith thought was his home. That way, John could just dive straight into living his life like he remembered doing for the past thirty-something years.

"Wait," John was still talking. "Which year are we in? What's the date exactly?"

"Blimey," the female laughed throatily, "how much have you had?"

"Well," John waved it off again.

"2005," she said slowly, "January the first."

"2005," John repeated dutifully. Then he brightened. "Tell you what, I bet you're going to have a really great year."

"Yeah?" the female asked.

John grunted in assent before lapsing into silence once more.

"Anyway, see you around maybe," Jack stepped into the conversation once more.

"I hope so," she agreed, "should you ever decide to pop back here to the Powell Estate."

"Did you just say the Powell Estate?" There it was again, alarm and surprise radiating from jack's mind. The Doctor also detected a hint of recognition from Jack. What, has Jack heard the place from somewhere before?

_At the time, I did give it a bit of thought but trust me, listening to three humans having a rambling conversation was not interesting so I_ –

"Wait," Jacqueline interrupted the Doctor's story once again. "Did you just say the Powell Estate. But that's where –"

"– Your mum lived," the Doctor finished her sentence for her. "I know. Well you see…"

_Kids, on the first of January, 2005, your mother and I were very close yet very far apart. I was a 902. Your mother was just 19. I was a Time Lord who was getting weary of travelling, burdened down by the things I have done. She was freshly out of high school, without her A-levels and stuck in a dead-end job. I was locked away in a pocket watch. She was still living with your grandmother Jackie. She was dating some idiot mechanic called Rickey and I? _

_I was alone. _

_That was the burden of being the last of the Time Lords._

_Kids, decades have passed since the New Year day of 2005. If I could go back in time and cross my own timeline, there is no way in hell I would have tuned out from the conversation they were having and just bided my time till I could be released from the pocket watch. No, I would go back to the TARDIS and see my old room with my old furniture and old stuff one last time with my sad lonely eyes. Because soon, I wouldn't be sad or alone anymore. I would go and visit Donna on one of her adventure holidays, watch like some proud parent as she go and visit Egypt for the first time. Because soon, I would be showing her things and places that she never would have dreamt of in a million years. __I would go back to see Martha and watch her graduate from medicine, something she's trained so long for. I might have even had the guts to apologize for the cowardly way I pretended not to notice her feelings in the hope that they would go away and I wouldn't have to deal with them. Because soon, I would understand what it means to fall in love and appreciate how scary and exhilarating the experience is._

_But none of those things would be the thing I'd do first. You know the thing I'd do first –_

"Well, see you," with one last cheeky grin, the young blonde girl bounded away.

"Bye Rose," Jack called out after her.

"Wait!" the Doctor called out after her, his feet leaping into action before he even thought to do so. Running full pelt down the suburban street without realizing it, he managed to catch up with her just as she turned a corner. Grabbing her hand, he turned her around to face him.

"Hello," she said, puzzled at the intense expression on his face.

"Hello," he greeted, smiling down at her. "I'm the Doctor and in exactly seventy-two days from now, you and I are going to meet. And we're going to fall in love and we're going to get married and we're going to have two kids. And we are going to love them and each other so much. All that is seventy-two days away."

He broke off as he stared intently at her face – her large hazel eyes covered with thick black mascara and eye-liner, her bleached blonde hair that fell to just below her shoulder blades, her pert little nose, her wide and full lips – he traced them all with his eyes and committed her features to memory.

"But I'm here now," he continued, "I guess because I want those extra seventy-two days with you. I want each one of them. And if I can't have them, I'll take the seventy-two seconds before your boyfriend shows up and punches me in the face. Because," the Doctor choked slightly at his own words as his eyes drank in the sight of her, "I love you. I'm always going to love you, to the end of my days and beyond." He heard pounding footsteps coming up from behind him and he lowered his right eye in a conspiratorial wink. "You'll see."

"Can I help you?" A loud masculine voice demanded to know as a strong hand clamped down on the Doctor's shoulder and turned him around.

"Oh hey," the Doctor greeted with a beaming grin, "it's Rickey, right? It's okay. It's fine. I'm in love with your girlfriend and we're going to get married."

"What?" the gangster-looking dude standing in front of him looked thunderous.

"Yeah," the Doctor smiled.

_And the last thing I would have remembered would have been his fist rushing forward to meet my face. But that's okay. _

_It would have been worth it._

_I know it's cheesy but when it comes to your mother, it's all worth it._


	6. Tick, Tick, Tick - The Family of Blood

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who isn't mine. Neither is How I Met Your Mother. Simple.

**Spoilers for all of Christopher Eccleston's and David Tennant's episodes.**

**Authors' Note:** To those who didn't understand the ending of chapter 5, it's something I took out from the HIMYM episode – basically the Doctor back in 2005 clearly didn't know this was all going to happen, he was still locked away in the pocket watch. But the present-day Doctor, knowing what was coming ahead for him, would have wanted to go back and soak up one last moment of his life before he met Rose. Because he knew once he met her, his life was going to change and she ended up making him better. But even if he could go back to that day, instead of doing that, what he would have wanted to do was to go after Rose and spend those extra seventy-two days with her because the time they have together will never be enough, he would always want more. :)

Did anybody else get confused over that bit too? If so, maybe I should go back and revise it.

* * *

**Chapter 6: Tick Tick Tick/Family of Blood**

_Kids, remember the bed-time story I used to read to you guys when Michael hit three? My old friend Einstein was right in his theories of relativity: time moves at different speeds. For me, those seventy-two days before I met your mother raced by in a blur. Being locked away wasn't exactly fun but it was quiet and relaxing. Occasionally I got glimpses of happy emotions from John Smith whenever he idly picks up the watch so I knew he was doing fine as well._

_The perception filter worked like a charm - perhaps a bit too well sometimes. After the fifth time John dropped the watch by accident and sent my mind into a dizzying spin, your Uncle Jack filched me from John's apartment and started carrying me around with him. I think it was partly for my own sanity and partly because Jack saw something fall out of the sky._

"Your list of instructions is useless!" Jack shouted. Judging by the volume of his voice, the Doctor guessed the former Time Agent was shouting directly at his watch. "Sure I can stop you from eating pears but I have no bloody idea what to do when there's a meteor! A shooting star! What am I supposed to do then?!"

_The thing with your Uncle Jack is, he has an abnormally thick skull. And I'm not talking about the density of his cranium. His mental barriers - a by-product of his time in the Time Agency - were set pretty high so when they were up, not even a telepathic elephant could have driven a dent into them. But when they were down, I could occasionally get across some simple messages. I discovered that whenever his emotions are running high, his barriers are at their weakest. Sometime s it's great. Because whenever Jack feels apprehensive about the Family of Blood being potentially nearby, I can telepathically communicate with him and decide on a best course of action, which is usually to hide. _

_Other times, it's not so great._

"A hundred dollars say when you turn around, I say wow," Jack purred into some hapless woman's ears.

Then predictably, came the age-old line. "Captain Jack Harkness. And who are you?"

Oh don't start, the Doctor realized with dawning horror.

_You see, your Uncle Jack likes to - oh, how should I put this? - dance. Yes, that's it, he likes to dance and dancing as you kids know, is really a two-people-only affair. So whenever Jack wants to ensnare, uh I mean find, someone who's willing to be his dance partner, I really don't want to be the third wheel. Thankfully, when he's on the prowl, his emotions are running haywire, which is great because I can intrude into his mind to convey my displeasure._

This is the song that never ends... the Doctor hummed loudly in his mind. It just goes on and on my friends... Some people started singing not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because ...

"Oh right, oh right," Jack muttered underneath his breath as he moved away from the lady. "I get your point. Just stop singing that song. It took me three days to get it out of my head the last time!"

_You see kids, never underestimate the little things that you learn along the way. Even the most harmless of songs can be turned into a deadly weapon._

_Now, where was I? Oh yes, once Jack and I established an agreement whereby he doesn't dance and I don't annoy him with nonsensical babble, the rest of the seventy-two days flew by in a blur. _

_But then all of a sudden, time stopped._

"Have you enjoyed it, Doctor, being human?" a voice that sounds like a human male but also distinctively disjointed and devoid of emotions taunted. The clarity of his voice was a bad sign, the Doctor realized. It meant Jack was acutely aware of the danger of this situation. Chances are, whoever was talking, was already long dead. One of the Family was now inhabiting his body.

The male wasn't done talking. "Has it taught you wonderful things?" he wanted to know. "Are you better, richer, wiser? Then let's see you answer this. Which one of them do you want us to kill? Your friend or your lover? Your choice."

"Make your decision, Mister Smith," a female voice, just as disjointed and flat, quipped in.

"Perhaps if that human heart breaks, the Time Lord will emerge," the male declared.

Oh this was bad, the Doctor thought. Right Jack, open me up. For a second.

The former Time Agent didn't hesitate. In that heartbeat of a second, the Doctor caught a glimpse of the outside world. They were all standing in a department store. He, or rather John Smith, was standing across from Jack was, gazing at them with a pair of wide terrified eyes, confused as to what was going on. All around them were animated window shop dummies. Autons? The Doctor thought briefly before rejecting that thought. He doubted the Nestene Consciousness would be in on this. Perhaps the Family was using some sort of animation particles to control the mannequins?

"It's him!" the male yelled out with traces of excitement ringing in his voice.

Anyway that wasn't really important. The Doctor reminded himself to focus on the more pressing issue.

Luckily for him, Jack was already on top of things. Just as the Family became distracted from the scent of the Time Lord, Jack ducked underneath the unsuspecting mannequin's arms and gripping it, whirled it around to knock out of the rest of the plastic dummies.

"You alright?" he asked someone as he quickly whipped out his sonic blaster.

"Yeah," came the shaky reply. Any other time, the Doctor would have wondered where he knew that voice from. But for the moment, he pushed it away to be analysed later.

"Oh," the male sneered, "the bodyguard is full of fire."

"I'm not just a pretty face, you know," Jack smirked back.

"Careful, Son of Mine," the Father spoke now. "This is all for you so you can live forever."

"Try it," Jack warned the Son against whatever he was planning on doing. "We'll die together."

"Would you really pull the trigger?" the Son taunted.

"Ever heard of the Time Agency?" Jack shot back.

Jack, the Doctor urged him telepathically. Can you get us somewhere away from this place? We need to regroup.

"Mister Smith," Jack directed it to the man still standing behind him, gawking. "Grab Rose and get out of here. I'll cover you."

John didn't reply but judging by the sound of footsteps moving away from where Jack was standing, the Doctor assumed the human version of himself had complied. Unfortunately, their companion wasn't as willing to just walk away, whoever she was.

"No, we're not leaving him," a female voice cried out. "Jack!" Sounds of struggle ensued.

"I'll be alright," Jack called out as he stepped slowly back.

"I should have taken your form," the Son said as he stepped forward, "Much more fun. So much spirit."

"What happened to the guy you took over?" Jack demanded. "Is he gone?"

Yes, came the Doctor's apologetic but firm response.

"He is consumed," the Son confirmed the Doctor's assessment. The Son laughed. "And he went with previous little dignity. All that screaming." He waited a pause and then, "Get the gun!"

Suddenly, Jack cursed.

You lost the gun? The Doctor guessed.

"Yup," Jack muttered. The jostling of the pocket watch indicated that Jack was on the move. "Don't just stand there, move!" Jack suddenly barked, presumably having caught up with John. "God, you're rubbish as a human. Come on!"

_Let me tell you kids, being jostled up and down while Jack was running is like being the ball in a pinball machine. I was a jumbled mess by the time we got away. I was so dizzy I barely caught this next bit._

"Right," Jack said, slightly out of breath from the run. "I think we lost them for now."

"That's not much comfort," John puffed. "They are bound to know we are heading to the Powell Estate. First thing first, we need a decent place to hide."

"Right," Jack agreed, "and I know just the place."

"A Police Box?" John said incredulously. "Jack, I know we need the authorities at the moment, but I don't think these old police boxes even work anymore. I haven't seen one in years. It's just a wooden box now. That's not going to help us against those guns they have. In case you didn't notice, they reduced a whole shelf of clothes into a pile of dust."

"Hang on," their female companion said slowly. "I've seen that before. You drew it in your journal, John."

"Right, no time to explain," Jack said as he dug into his pocket. He was searching for the key, which had an unfortunate effect of jostling the Doctor even more. "In we go."

The reassuring hum of the TARDIS, even as muted as it were, hit the Doctor like a warm gust of wind, welcoming a weary traveller home.

"It's real," the female said with wonder in her voice. "Everything here inside the blue box, it's all real. Just like the sketch in the journal."

"Yes," Jack said agitatedly. "It's bigger on the inside. Yes, it looks like it belongs to something out of a science fiction novel. Look, we don't have time for this." He held out the watch. "We need the Doctor right now."

Closer, the Doctor thought. Pick me up.

"The watch," John said slowly. As his mind began to be filled with warmth, the Doctor knew he was now back in his own palms. "I think he's asleep, waiting to awaken."

"Yes," Jack agreed. "That's him. All you have to do is open it and he's back."

"John?" the female said softly.

"You knew this all along!" John suddenly turned on Jack, "And yet you watched while Rose and I –"

"What was I supposed to do?" Jack shot back. "I was just your bodyguard!"

He paused for a minute and in the silence that followed, the Doctor could hear the sound of explosions outside. While they were standing inside the TARDIS arguing, the world outside was going to hell.

"Look," Jack continued, albeit with a softer tone. "It was always going to end. The Doctor said the Family's got a limited lifespan, and that's why they need to consume a Time Lord. Otherwise, three months and they die. Like mayflies, he said."

John wasn't in a forgiving mood. "So your job was to execute me."

Even though he wasn't in Jack's possession anymore, the Doctor could still sense the agitation coming off of Jack in waves. "People are dying out there, John," he said instead, "and we need him. You have no idea of what he's like. I've known him for years and even now, I think I've just scratched the surface in terms of understanding who he is. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and he can see the turn of the universe. And he's wonderful. He makes the world better. You have to believe me, we need him right now."

There was a brief moment of contemplation. The Doctor thought with relief that finally, John was going to open the watch and let him out. They need to get this sorted before things get out of control. Frankly, the Doctor didn't want to deal with the UNIT clean-up crew.

John finally said, "If they want the Doctor, they can have him."

The Doctor's mind froze for a second. Never in a million years had he ever considered the possibility that a product of the Chameleon Arch would react this strongly against opening the watch.

Just as he was trying to think of something to say to John, their female companion spoke up. "John," she said softly, "You can't do that."

"Why not?" he demanded. "Rose, if they get what they want, then… then…"

"Then it all ends in destruction," Rose finished it for him. "Remember what you wrote in the journal? Those creatures would live forever to breed and conquer and like the Bad Wolf, spread across Time and Space. Except with them, everything would end in war."

"But Rose," John whispered.

"What is your heart telling you to do?" she asked.

John didn't answer that question. Instead, he said in a small voice, "I could save the world but lose you."

The Doctor felt the warmth of another hand on top of John's grip on the pocket watch.

"Oh Rose."

The pocket watch opened with a small click.

The first thing that the Doctor was aware of was the golden light that surrounded him. Sensations and awareness began to filter back into his mind. He finally has a body again, with everything that came attached to it. A head. A Neck. Fingers and toes. Hands and feet. Arms and legs.

It took a split second for the Doctor to notice that his arms were full. His hands were splayed and pressed against the back of a warm and feminine body. Even as sensations came rushing back, it was almost as if his body was acting on its own accord. His head was bent down and his mouth was pressed against someone else's. Their lips met and clung, their tongues entangled in a kiss that was as heartfelt as it was desperate. The Doctor could feel the liquid heat of the kiss from the top of his head all the way to the tip of his toes.

_Kids, my first kiss with your mother was amazing. And complicated. There were so many emotions running through my system. Memories from the past three months came flooding back, overwhelming me for a moment. As those memories became integrated into my mind and faded into the background, I took stock of the situation. A part of me, the John Smith part, I supposed, wanted to bask in that kiss for longer. But another part, a bigger part, was acutely aware of everything going on outside. _

_I needed to go and stop the Family. _

With more reluctance than he cared to admit, the Doctor pulled back from the kiss and took his first look at Rose.

In one word? Sunshine.

She was all pink and yellow and full of life, not at all someone he should be associated with. Her face was thin and angular with her hazel eyes the dominating feature. The thick mascara and eyeliner decorating them were smudged and running down her cheeks. Her lips, wide and full, were parted as she, like him, struggled to catch her breath. Blonde hair, with brown showing at the roots, fell to just below her shoulder blades. She was roughly medium height, the Doctor estimated, and was decked out in a shirt and jacket, a pair of faded blue jeans and runners.

The Doctor noted all of it but it was her eyes that held his attention. Those eyes were watching him now, with a mixture of warmth, youth and heartbreak.

Eyes that made him swallow nervously at the implications behind those emotions.

He mustered a grin, "Hello."

That seemed to unchain her from whatever was holding her still. The young girl let out all her breath and dropped his hand, backing away until her back hit the TARDIS coral behind her.

"So..." the Doctor racked his brain, trying to find the right thing to say. What do you say to a stranger you've just snogged? He raised his hands and gestured at the TARDIS. "What do you think?"

He saw her eyes roam around at the TARDIS console room. They skittered over the console itself, before lifting to focus on the time rotor suspended in the central column and then to the arching dome with its myriad of lights before finally coming back to rest on him.

"It's alien," she said.

"Yeah."

"Are you alien?" came the next question.

"Yes," there was no avoiding that fact. Before he could stop himself, he asked, "Is that alright?" It was almost as if there was a small part of him that sought her approval.

"Yeah," she nodded slowly.

Well, that's a positive start. So the Doctor nodded at his ship, "It's called the TARDIS, this thing. Time and Relative Dimension in Space."

At which point, the girl promptly burst into tears.

At a loss of what to do, the Doctor looked around helplessly and his eyes rested on Jack, who was standing behind the young girl by the front door. The former Time Agent was gesturing wildly with his arms. The Doctor looked at him weirdly for a second before it clicked – Jack thought he should hug the girl to comfort her.

Just then, the sound of another explosion reached their ears.

"Oh, the Family," the Doctor suddenly realized. "Need to sort this out first. Sorry, uh," he racked his brain before a name came to him, "Rose, uh why don't you go with Jack. Yeah, he'll look after you. I'll go and sort this out, and I might well die in the process. But don't worry about me. No, you go home. Go on," without waiting for either of them to respond, the Doctor bundled them out of the TARDIS. "Go and have some tea and some beans on toast." That was a comfort food, wasn't it?

"Does he always talk like that?" Rose asked Jack, who was too surprised to say anything in reply.

Having all but pushed Jack and Rose out of the TARDIS, the Doctor turned to duck back into the TARDIS.

"Wait, Doc," Jack called out. "What are you going to do to them?"

The Doctor popped his head back and looked at him. "They wanted forever. I'm going to make sure they do."

_No second chances, I'm not that sort of guy._

_Kids, perhaps I was a bit too harsh on them but the anger that was burning inside me could not be denied. I hid from them once and that ended in bloodshed and death of innocents. I wasn't going to let that happen again. They have all of eternity to consider what they have done and perhaps come to the realization that eternity is not what it's all cracked out to be. Like I said to Lazarus not so long ago, a longer life isn't always a better one. _

_There was just one more thing left to do._

Having unloaded the Son on the fields of England suspended in time, the Doctor directed the TARDIS back to where he last left Jack and Rose, set to arrive only a couple of hours after when he left them. After the TARDIS landed with a gentle whoosh, the Doctor paused at the console for a minute. It was done. The Family had been dealt with. The UNIT would most likely clean up the mess in London. The only unfinished business was Rose.

Even at the mention of her name, a sense of yearning rose up within him. Despite being a story that the TARDIS had created, John Smith had lived for seventy-two days as a human and with it came seventy-two days of thoughts, memories and emotions. He was still in there, somewhere, like a half-forgotten dream.

Yet the feelings that the Doctor was feeling now clearly belonged to John. How could a human girl evoke such strong feelings despite only seventy-two days of acquaintance?

Well, there really was only one thing to do.

Pushing away from the console, the Doctor strode down the plank and exited the TARIDS, just in time to see a familiar looking man come running down the street towards Jack and Rose.

"Rose!" Mickey panted when he finally caught up with them, completely out of breath from his run. "Oh thank God you're okay." He enveloped Rose in a hug. For some reason, the Doctor felt a twinge of annoyance at the sight. "It's not safe. There are these things, and they were shooting! And they –" he broke off at the sight of the Doctor by the TARDIS.

Rose only had her eyes on the Doctor. "Is it done?"

"It's done," the Doctor confirmed.

"John," letting out a breath, Rose nodded. Her eyes darted away from him. A nervous chuckle escaped her. "Sorry, I should call you the Doctor now, shouldn't I? What are you going to do now?"

"Well, I've got a TARDIS," the Doctor jerked his head at the police box behind him. "I, er, I don't know," here goes nothing, "you could come with me. This box is like everything I wrote in the journal. It goes anywhere in the universe free of charge."

"Don't," Mickey interjected, grabbing onto Rose's waist with both arms. "He's an alien. He's a thing!"

The Doctor refrained from rolling his eyes. "He's not invited." More memories came flooding back: Mickey fighting with Rose and John finding her crying on the streets; Mickey confront John; the two of them eventually coming to a reluctant truce for Rose's sake.

He turned his attention back to Rose and asked, "So what do you think? You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep or," he paused before suggesting, "you could go anywhere."

"Is it always this dangerous?" Rose clearly looked tempted, which prompted Mickey to tighten his grip on her. Another flash of annoyance flared up but the Doctor quickly pushed it down.

"Yeah," he nodded.

"Yeah," she echoed. Then she shook her head as if to clear it. "I can't." At the look on his face, Rose hastened to add, "I've er, I've got to go and find my Mum and someone has got to look after this stupid lump. So…" she trailed off weakly.

"Okay," he agreed, hoping that the disappointment didn't show up on his face. "See you around."

They both knew that was a lie.

"Jack," the Doctor called out and his friend gave Rose one last hug before ducking into the TARDIS and closed the door behind him.

The two of them remained quiet as the Doctor initiated the dematerializing sequence. The Doctor was too busy with his tumultuous feelings to pay Jack any attention. He felt disappointed when Rose declined to come away with him. And it was more than the usual blips of regret he felt when someone declined to be his companion. There was a strange empty echo inside his chest and his right hand itched as if reaching out for something that wasn't there. Even he couldn't help notice the way he prodded at the TARDIS controls listlessly.

Now was not the time to dwell on the past, the Doctor reprimanded himself sternly.

"Well," he forced himself to brighten up his tone, "off we go then. What do you feel like doing? Frankly, after spending so long stuck in a pocket watch, I'm up for some running. There's a three-legged marathon on the planet Morae that I've always wanted to attend. Of course, the inhabitants of Morae actualy do have three legs so they don't actually have to bind their legs to a partner like humans. But that doesn't make the race any less comical. Morae citizens are notorious for their clumsiness. I reckon between us two, we could seriously give them a run for their money. What do you think?"

Jack was incredulous. "That's it?" he asked. "You're not going to go after her?"

"I don't want to talk about it," the Doctor's voice remained upbeat but there was a firmness underlying his words.

The topic was closed.

But Jack was refusing to let it go. "You could go back and ask her again. You saw the way she was looking at you back there. If you asked, I'm sure she would have come with us in a heartbeat."

"I don't ask twice," the Doctor said, still trying to remain upbeat despite the lump forming in his throat. Clearing his throat, he carried on, "Like she said, she's probably got to go and find Jackie and believe you and me, I do not want to be there when that banshee surfaces. She'll probably slap me into high heavens again. For the third time this week in fact, bringing the number of times Jackie Tyler's palm has made contact with my cheeks to a grand total of twenty-four. Though strictly speaking, it would be twenty-five if you count that time two weeks ago when Rose invited me over for dinner – we had pot roast – and Jackie grabbed my face and leeched the oxygen out of me, which I don't because I don't ever want to remember that episode ever again. So yes, twenty-four. And I do not want to make it twenty-five. Time we moved on."

Surprisingly, Jack had kept up with his long ramble – an unusual first. "If you want, I could go and," he offered.

"Time we moved on," the Doctor repeated, his age-old eyes stared into Jack's until the younger man backed down.

The two of them remained silent. The human petulant and the Time Lord pensive. Around them, the TARDIS hummed her timeless tune as she lazed about in the Time Vortex, lacking her usual jerks and shudders.

Eventually, the Doctor spoke up, "I never said, thank you for looking after me."

Jack cracked a small grin. "You were a difficult one to deal with, that's for sure. Ordering me about like a paid servant. Well, I was posing as your bodyguard so I suppose that was to be expected." He hesitated before asking, "Just how much of it do you remember?"

The Doctor shrugged, "Some. John Smith's memories have been incorporated into mine. Three months, against the nine hundred-odd years I've lived, is barely a blip in the radar. The memories are already fading into the background."

"And yet you still remember exactly how many times Jackie slapped you," Jack observed. "And what you guys had for dinner the last time you were at their house."

The Doctor remained silent, not sure how he should respond to that.

"She made him better, you know," Jack said as he settled don onto the jump seat.

"What do you mean?" the Doctor was confused.

"Rose made him better," Jack repeated, leaning back and tilting his head to look up at the domed ceiling of the console room, "John Smith was very much like you when you called me up all of a sudden, asking me for help. Don't you think for a second I forgot that you still haven't told me what happened. I know something must have gone wrong, horribly wrong. You were as dark as when I first met you in London, a lifetime ago. John Smith was very much like that to begin with. An eccentric millionaire who ran away from his inheritance because he was jaded with life. Until she came along that is. She made him better and I know she could do it again to you. I think she's meant to come with us."

Jack looked back over at the silent Doctor and sighed. "But you are just going to ignore everything I said because you dislike anything that's even remotely domestic. Fine, Doc, we'll do it your way. Where to next? Morae."

"Don't feel like that anymore," the Doctor shook his head.

"Mystery tour it is then?" Jack guessed.

Th Doctor answered with a wide grin as he spun the dials without looking down at them and randomly pulled some levers. The TARDIS materialised with a shudder and a groan before coming to a complete still.

"Running shoes on?"

"Affirmative," Jack nodded.

"Good," the Doctor beamed as they strode down the ramp. "I wonder what we'll find out there. Maybe a weekend market? Though not Sundays, I try to never land on a Sunday, much too quiet for my liking. Or, I don't know, maybe we'll see some rights movement march. There's one in the year 3845 that I've always been meaning to visit but haven't manage to get around to it. I wonder if the Old Girl still remembers it."

Beaming, the Doctor pulled open the doors and stepped out.

Only to find him and Jack stepping out onto a deserted street in the middle of the night.

"You know," Jack commented as he examined their surroundings, snow crunching underneath his boots, "for someone with a keen interest in time and space, you sure spend a lot of your time down here on Earth."

"This looks like London," the Doctor said. He mentally calculated the odds of a random setting landing back at the exact spot in space as where the TARDIS left. He reckoned it was about 1 in at least a couple of hundred millions. The time was different though. He could sense that they were at least a couple of years in the past.

"Bad Wolf," Jack said out loud as he examined the graffiti decorating the fences and walls around them. "Hang on, that means we are in the –"

"Powell Estate," the Doctor finished Jack's train of thought, nodding his head in assent to Jack's assessment. The chances of that happening now rocketed up even higher. He hated coincidences. Why would the TARDIS bring them here?

"Well, that decides it," Jack announced. "The Universe clearly wants you to take Rose with you. Do not piss off the Universe. The Universe will slap you."

The Doctor rolled his eyes as he strode down the practically deserted street, not waiting for Jack to catch up. "Oh, come on. I think the Universe has bigger things to worry about than who I take on as a companion."

"Unless," Jack countered as he jogged to catch up, "you and Rose were already predetermined to travel together. Maybe evidence of your travels together has already been documented in the fabric of time."

"You sound like you know more than you let on," the Doctor said, suspicious.

"Never mind that," Jack changed the topic. "Is it Christmas?"

So it was, the Doctor noted as they both came to a standstill. He looked up and with unerring accuracy, located the flat that Rose shared with her mother. Strings of Christmas lights donned their veranda.

"1998," the Doctor stated as he observed the brand new wreath of mistletoe that was hanging on their front door. Rose would be twelve by now, he thought as he continued staring up at the flat.

"Isn't that the year she got a red bicycle?" Jack wanted to know, staring up at the veranda alongside the Doctor.

"Yeah," the Doctor said with a faint smile. Then he frowned. "Wait, how do you know?"

"Because you wouldn't shut up about it ever since you and Mickey went shopping that one time and came home with a tiny little red bicycle. You were beaming away like Father Christmas."

Jack's words brought back memories of that day.

"I wanted to get something for Rose and for some reason, we ended up in a toy store," the Doctor recalled. But while they were there, they discovered a red bicycle that Mickey claimed was identical to the one Rose had back when she was twelve.

"She begged and begged Jackie for one," Mickey had laughed at the time. "But Jackie insisted it was too expensive and that maybe she'll get it the following year. Then when Rose woke up the next morning, she discovered it at their front door. Man, when she sees we managed to find an identical one..."

The Doctor turned to Jack, "Where did you put it? I don't remember seeing it in the apartment after that day."

"I popped it in the TARDIS. Figured it was the safest place to hide anything."

The Doctor let out the breath he was holding. "Right," he nodded. He knew what he had to do now.

He turned and headed back to the TARDIS.

_Kids, it turned out your Uncle Jack was right. It as predetermined that your mother and I were going to travel together. That was why the TARDIS landed us back in the Powell Estate. That was why I managed to find an identical red bicycle to the one your mother got when she was twelve. It just turned out that it was not just identical but the exact same one. And that was why during my moment of hesitation, your Uncle Jack slapped me._

"Ow," the Doctor yelled. "What was that for?"

"That wasn't me," Jack said with a dose of self-righteousness that only he could possess. "That was the Universe."

_So I went and did something I didn't think I would do._

_I went back and asked your mother one last time._

_As I stood at the door and looked at your mother, I was suddenly lost as to what to say. All I could come up with was _–

"By the way, did I mention it also travels in time?"

_My brain went into overdrive, imagining every possible response._

"No," Rose said firmly.

_Or…_

"Oh God no!" she claimed, horrified.

_Or…_

Rose cracked up laughing. "What? You want me to," Rose's words were barely discernible amidst her gales of laughter.

_Okay, that last one was a bit out of the left field. But the point was _–

_If you're lucky, she may answer with the single greatest word in the English language. _

"Yes," Rose said, a wide grin spreading over her face.

_Best pick-up line ever. _


End file.
